A Lot Like Never
by Nymbis
Summary: AU/DoFP Spoilers. For the last three years, Pyro has gone to bed in a sterilized cell after a lab tears him open and puts him back together. In the morning he wakes up, makes sure Rogue's still alive in the cell across from him, and it starts again. But today is different. Today, John wakes up in a dorm room. Turns out there can be second chances. Rogue/Pyro. Rating may go up.
1. Part One: An Ending

**AN: **What good is DOFP if we can't screw with continuity, right? AU from events of the movies (instead of having the timeline reset around X3, it resets towards the beginning of X2), and based largely on speculation in regards to Rogue's cut subplot in DOFP. Eventual Rogue/Pyro, with residual Rogue/Bobby

**A Lot Like Never**

_**Part One: An Ending  
**_**Rogue**

**In the not too distant future…**

She's a powdered keg of dynamite, and no one knows how long the fuse is going to be.

It's hard to stop watching the news as it blares throughout the rec room, but Rogue tells herself it's for the best if she does. She's been telling herself that for the last few hours, as CNN keeps circulating around its biggest, breaking news:

_Update! Boy in El Salvador accidentally ignites supermarket-_

_Breaking! Woman in Britain suffers mental breakdown after psychic powers re-emerge-_

_Newsflash! Man in Russia kills self, three others after mutant powers reactivate-_

Rogue folds her legs against her chest, and wraps her arms around her shins. As if having that added layer of a physical barrier is enough to make reality go away. She rests her chin on her knees, brown eyes unmoving from the screen as story after story goes reported.

_Just In! A-list actor Chad Core exposed as a mutant at film premiere after the Cure-_

_Update! Confirmed 11 dead, seventeen injured in El Salvadorian supermarket explosion-_

She should get up. Do laundry. Make coffee.

_Breaking! The President of the United States has formed an emergency meeting of his cabinet to discuss-_

Maybe finish her essay. She was still trying to make it through the Institute's college courses. Rogue had once entertained the thought of applying outside of the state for college, maybe going back home in the South, but after Alcatraz she couldn't leave. Not in good conscience. Not after Dr. Grey and Mr. Summers and Dr. Xavier. Not when Logan was…in whatever place Logan was. So she'd thought she'd stick around, get things right at the Institute. Maybe leave in a year or two, for a while. Maybe finally see Alaska.

But now she was a powder keg. And there were little boys exploding in super markets.

_-Prime Minister is proclaiming crisis-_

_-Chad Core banned from upcoming Cannes Film Festival-_

Rogue rubbed her fingers together. They were dry, or at least, they felt dry. Part of wearing gloves nearly nonstop for a decade was that it was hard comparing the feel of skin to silk. She'd just started wearing rings. Maybe she could give them to Jubilee, or Kitty. Rings weren't any good under cloth. She traced a finger pad over one of her nails. Maybe she'd paint them before it was over. Some ridiculously bright color, like turquoise.

_Poll: What should be done about mutants in America in light of Cure's failure? 67% support mandatory registration-_

She should really get up and make some coffee.

_Riots in Vancouver today over the recent decision to implement what's being called a "mutant police force"-_

"Turn this crap off, kid."

Rogue's eyes sluggishly drifted from the screen to Logan. He was standing to the side of the couch, and judging by the crossed over arms and the raised eyebrow, he'd been there awhile. Rogue plastered on a smile, hating how practiced it was.

"What? You don't want to hear the news?"

Logan snorted, half-sitting on the sofa's armrest, "It's not news."

_Mutant terrorist group still at large-_

His voice changed. It became lower or softer, "How long you been sitting here?"

Rogue closed her eyes, "A while," she admitted.

"Since this morning?"

"I got up at four."

Logan looked at his watch, shook his head, "You know it's almost noon, right?"

She said nothing, only tilted her head down so her forehead rested on her knees.

"C'mon, get up."

_Could the Cure have been a plan by mutant terrorists-_

"Just another minute-"

_Mutants or monsters?-_

Rolling his eyes, Logan walked over to the television and stabbed through the side of it with a short punch of his clawed hand. The words died on the perfectly coiffed anchor's lips in a short blip of the power cutting out and a shower of sparks. Logan retracted his claws.

Rogue stared at him, open-mouthed.

He rose an eyebrow.

"Now you don't have an excuse to sit around moping all day."

_Takes one to know one_, came a petulant voice in her head. She wasn't sure who it belonged to, but a small part of her agreed with it, "Y'know Ms. Munroe'll make you pay for that."

"I got a tab."

"For busted TVs?"

"It's an inclusive tab. Now let's go break shit in the Danger Room. It'll be good for you. Exercise. Or something."

Rogue sighed, sending a last stare to the television before following Logan out. He probably needed it more than her.

* * *

So Rogue tried her best to stop watching the news. But news travelled regardless. The air was thick with tension at the Institute, only getting worse as the weeks rolled by and the news stories grew more and more frantic. As more students started getting pulled out of school by their parents. As the seats around the table gradually emptied, like some perverse game of musical chairs.

She remembers a time where supper was an _event_. Lorna would make her cutlery dance across the table and Piotr would watch the demonstration with an uneasy stare. Kitty would ramble about a software program she was working on, and Bobby'd responded with polite questions as he'd squeeze Rogue's knee under the table, sending smiles her way when she looked over at him. Ms. Munroe would chastise John as he'd click his lighter, because apparently steak needed to be charbroiled. He'd flip the top of his zippo open over and over until he was sure she'd rolled his eyes at him at least once, before he'd grin and stop.

But now, supper felt like a countdown. Lorna got sent home. Piotr took dinner in his rooms alone. Kitty's computer had been trashed when she had to phase away from rioters and she'd had it in her backpack. Bobby's hand would hesitate over her, like a man trapped, where any gesture he'd make would be the wrong one. And no one knew where the hell John was after Alcatraz. After Alkai.

And she was back to being a powdered keg.

A month or two after Logan blew up the television, just when she was learning to tune out the news and keep her shock of white hair under a hat, Rogue came home from the supermarket to see graffiti plastered over the gates of her home.

**MUTANT SCUM**

**DIE, FREAKS**

**YOU CANT HIDE 4EVER**

**TERRORISTS**

And, because she couldn't think of anything else to do, she walked past the signs, and calmly put her groceries in their allotted places once she was inside. Then, she walked to her room, and she put on gloves with only slightly trembling fingers.

She eventually gave her rings to Kitty. And her friend had the good grace to look confused at the gift.

* * *

"I love you, you know."

The confession is surprising, especially since the last hour or so of their date at the local bar had been spent nursing cheap beer and watching the television in silent horror. But there's something in his voice that makes Rogue think he's sincere, and she turns away from the television—something about counteractive forces being developed to deal with the mutant _problem_—to look over her shoulder at the man sitting on the bar stool next to her.

The date had been her idea. To get out of the Mansion, maybe shoot some pool. Have a few beers. Pretend like he was still her committed boyfriend and that she wasn't an indeterminate amount of time away from becoming poisonous. Get away from that darkening blanket that was covering them.

Bobby had agreed. And they had shot pool. And had a few beers. And he'd even kissed her on the forehead, an arm wrapping around her waist with only a second of hesitation. And it felt like maybe there was the possibility at light at the end of the tunnel for once. That Alcatraz, the Cure, and Dr. Grey hadn't left them all behind to suffocate.

But then someone had asked the bartender to change the channel from the football game to the local news. The pool cues were put down, and the pair of them were drawn back into that black hole, that uneasy, syrupy feeling of being in quicksand and having nothing to grab.

Rogue looked at her boyfriend- was he her boyfriend? What were they?- and the only response she could muster was a confused frown, "What?"

Bobby smiled, but it was thin and since when had he started looking so…so _Scott, _"I do. And whatever happens…" his hand reached out to grab her own, gloved one. And Rogue closed her eyes. Because it always came back to that elephant in the room, didn't it? "It doesn't change things for me."

Rogue looked up at him, meeting his blue eyes with her own brown ones. Trying to see an answer in them, not sure what she was asking, "We know what's gonna happen."

The smile fell from his face, and his grip tightened on her fingers, "Maybe. But…I know things haven't been the best, back at the Mansion," and she sees Kitty on his face just as clear as if it'd been stamped red on his forehead, but he juts his chin at the television screen above the bar, "And I think things are only going to get worse. For all of us."

Rogue has to look away from him then, and away from the television. Which leads her to staring intently at a bowl of shelled peanuts placed in front of her, because it was _that _kind of bar. Rogue took a second to mentally blame the absorbed psyche of Logan's running around in her head, the same psyche that taught her what snooker was and which end of a cigar to cut off before smoking.

And she still feels Bobby in her head, too, from that time in Boston. From all the times after it, before the Cure. So she knows he means it, when he says it. But those words still shouldn't feel an awful lot like being dumped.

"How'd we get here, Bobby?" She asks the peanuts.

He looks away from the television to look at her, and she can feel his desperately hopeful stare, but she doesn't look away from the bowl in front of her. "I don't know," he admits.

She lets her gloved thumb run over his knuckles, "I hate admitting it, but I'm scared."

"Me too."

The television cuts to another puff piece. The news scroll at the bottom of the screen says something about re-instating a military contract from the 1970s with a supposedly disbanded production company. Trask Industries. Rogue's never heard of it.

The bartender swings by to pick up their bottles, but he pauses, staring at Bobby like he's seen him before, like he's making his mind up about something.

"You're from that school, aren't you?"

And that gets Rogue looking up from her peanuts. She sees the tension coil around Bobby's shoulders, feels his hand withdraw from hers as he looks the bartender straight in the eyes and keeps his tone cordial.

"Yeah, a mile or two from here."

The bartender leans forward, and Rogue doesn't like that look in his eyes, doesn't like that it's getting sent in her direction now too, "The big one? With the gates, right?"

"That's right."

The bartender snorts and the noise makes a few other patrons look over. Rogue feels her stomach start to twist, and she shifts in her seat. "Is it true what they say?"

"What who says?"

"About the muties. You got muties there?"

And the bar is silent. Deadly silent. The quiet before thunder. She feels sick.

Rogue discretely puts money on the counter to pay for their beers. Bobby gives her an infinitesimal nod.

"Xavier's is a prep school, nothing more," he hedges, standing and waiting for Rogue to do the same. When she moves, he throws an arm protectively over her shoulders. As a pair, as a team, they start walking towards the door.

Rogue doesn't look back, but she can hear the bartender clear as day behind them.

"You freaks just stay behind that gate, you got it? Keep the animals in the zoo!"

Bobby's arm doesn't leave her shoulders. And Rogue doesn't comment about the frost forming on the lapel of her jacket as they begin their way back to safety. Tries not to notice Kitty's wounded look at the contact when they walk back into the Mansion.

* * *

Someone blows up a community center.

Though calling it a community center doesn't seem right. Because most community centers Rogue knows don't do what that place was doing. They don't host mobs in their basement. They don't beat teenagers who had done nothing wrong other than use their power at the wrong time. They don't call themselves Friends of Humanity but endorse the harassment of anyone whose only difference from them is an invisible chromosome that they can't see or fathom.

It's not a community center. Not really. It's a place where people who hate people like her go to congregate. It could've grown into something worse- a base, a detention center, or a prison.

Blows up isn't accurate, either. The news says arson. And that word puts an ugly pit in her stomach, a stabbing of something that can only be called grief. People, trapped in a building, and burned down with it. And Bobby's expression shows that even if Rogue's doubts can't be confirmed about what caused the fire, they aren't unfounded. They might not be separate from John.

The authorities don't find the culprit. But they blame the mutants. And the media doesn't see a difference between community center and base, of non-profit organization and hate-group. In the weeks that follow, a burned down community center is joined by an exploded hospital, a disintegrated government office, and a pro-registration congressman is assassinated by a burst of kinetic energy from two hundred yards away.

It sparks off a witch hunt, and all fingers are pointed at them.

Two months after the community center, registration becomes mandatory for mutants and the use of powers in public avenues becomes illegal.

* * *

Rogue's powers manifest in her sleep. She's fully clothed (because they can't take chances now, can they?), curled against Bobby in bed when her shirt accidentally rides up and his hand grazes across her side.

She's dreaming about snowboarding, of teasing her younger brother and building her first snowman when his convulsions wake her.

She screams. And it's David all over again. It's David all over again and she's screaming for help, for someone, _anyone _to do something as she tries her best to hold her boyfriend still without touching him. Until someone who isn't a powder keg can hold him still instead.

* * *

The next morning Bobby's physically fine, if not unnerved and exhausted, and finds her curled up in the corner of the library. When he goes to touch her gloved hand she flinches and yells at him to get the hell away from her. Her eyes are red.

Bobby stays nearby, but follows her wish. And after five attempts of saying it's okay, really it's okay, and an hour of sitting in awkward frustration as she refuses to look at him, he leaves.

* * *

Rogue is dry-eyed and alone when she registers. The line at the DMV is boxed in by police escorts, and checkmark after checkmark is entered as she files everything in detail, in triplicate.

The attendant sneers at her before he takes her paperwork and gives her a new driver's license. This one has a thick, black **M **below her name.

* * *

An unarmed mutant is shot by a policeman. It's unclear if they were actually robbing the gas station, but the judge ruled the murder justified since a new legal clause states that any mutant is an armed mutant.

The robber was a sixteen year old, stealing Mountain Dew and some condoms.

Riots happen in the mutant's hometown within an hour of the verdict being made public. Sixteen people are thrown in jail, and a local policeman sent to subdue the riots is killed by a regular, old-fashioned human with a handgun in the confusion.

* * *

A week after registering, Rogue can finally admit that she is avoiding Bobby.

* * *

Another Friends of Humanity building is burned down.

* * *

A month later, Bobby and Rogue finally admit to each other that maybe it's best to take a break. Until things settle.

* * *

The graffiti and the vandalism to the Mansion has spread to the grounds. To the memorial benches and plaques. And Rogue sits with Logan in a furious silence in front of the tree they had planted for Dr. Grey, wrapped in toilet paper that should be harmless but instead feels like a knife in the ribs, stealing breath from her lungs.

* * *

By the time the Sentinels finally come, they're down to twenty students at the school, with six faculty and a Logan. And it's nothing like Stryker. Theresa is killed when a wall is torn from the side of the building, crushed by a support beam and concrete. Artie is torn from his bed by metallic cables.

Rogue tries to help where she can. She works with Piotr to get the remaining younger students out first, borrowing his metallic form long enough to help him clear out the debris in front of the hidden panels. She registers Kitty phasing others through the floors, out of harm's way.

But it's too fast. _They're _too fast, and Xavier's has been dealt many hard blows over the years, but nothing can prepare a handful of students for something like _this. _

Rogue remembers Stryker's men. How they moved like ghosts, how her and Bobby and John and Logan had managed to get out. She sees her own fear in the younger kids' faces, and Rogue reminds herself that this time _she's _the grown-up. She's the X-Man. And she's getting them out.

She's helping Piotr clear the last dorm room when they're suddenly surrounded by the things. Four, then five, then six. And Rogue hears the protests of several psyches ricocheting around her skull as she tells Piotr to take Victor and Alisa and _get the hell out of there. _He refuses at first, but when she threatens to drain him dry afterwards he reluctantly takes the children and runs.

Rogue puts up a good fight. But she's outnumbered. And Piotr's powers are temporary.

A robotic hand extends towards her as she staggers from a blow given by another Sentinel, and Rogue can almost make out the sound of Bobby and Logan screaming her name, her _real _name from down the hall. Lord, she hopes they're not stubborn asses and that they just _go. _

The fingers wrap around her, tightening and emitting some kind of high-pitched wail that makes black spots form in front of her eyes. She's lifted off the ground and the wailing grows louder, making everything else around her go white noise and static. And as Rogue finally loses the fight to retain consciousness, she hears one final word, hitting her like a nail on a coffin:

**APPREHENDED. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Part One: An Ending  
_Pyro_**

**Somewhere in Boston, Massachusetts. ****  
****One week following the Sentinel attack on Xavier's**

Squatted apartments don't get cable. Or the internet. And though he wouldn't trade what he could do for anything, after his fifth apartment without a phone line or electricity, Pyro's finally starting to get the advantages of telepathy. Because burning down a building isn't as persuasive as manipulating memories, and arson doesn't get you a working cell phone.

It does, however, help a guy rob. He imagines he should feel bad about it. The process of holding fire up to some dude's face and watching him practically piss himself as he forks over his wallet. But he doesn't. Not when he's had more taken away by pathetic pieces of shit like _humans._Not when he had to break himself out of prison. Not when he's a supposed god among insects but he can't afford to get a fucking computer running. Not when he's been living in a squatted apartment, sleeping on a mattress with no bedframe, and eating his daily packet of Ramen noodles for the ninth day straight.

Being a fugitive and alleged "terrorist", it turns out, doesn't come with the glamorous packaging that accompanies boot-licking and being a boy scout. He fell for that trap the first time- the fancy curtains and the dormitories and someone always telling him to settle for less and labeling it home. He'd rather take the shithole apartment, because at least it can't pretend like it's working when things are falling apart at the seams. And for now, until the Cure runs out, until Magneto's back at the helm, it's good enough to sit in squalor and wait.

…Good enough, but not easy. As with awkward silences, Pyro's never been an expert hand at patience. Something a few of those pathetic Friends of Humanity clubhouses can attest to. Magneto might be down for the count at the moment, but Pyro's more than capable of sending out his own messages. Burning down community centers is like throwing spit wads at moving trains, but it's _something._And anything's better than sitting in the dark, literally and figuratively, since fugitives can't sign leases or pay electric bills legitimately.

So as an acolyte without someone to follow, a lot of Pyro's time is spent trying to gather intel as effectively as he can. Which, it turns out, is not that effective at all since, again, he doesn't even own a computer. But Pyro'll get information like a fucking pilgrim if it means avoiding exposure. Because the world's falling to hell, but he's not giving up. The Cure is failing more and more cowards every day, and it's only a matter of time before he sees a headline screaming MAGENTO AT LARGE. And when he does, he needs to be ready. So a routine's developed.

The morning where it all starts going to hell starts out like any other morning. He takes his lighter—while he was in prison his flamethrower was _confiscated,_like he's a kid caught with a porno mag at summer camp—makes sure it has enough butane, scrounges up a few bucks, and buys as many newspapers as he can. When he gets home, he throws the copies on the kitchen counter that's currently serving as an impromptu office.

His place barely looks lived in, and the kitchen is no exception. There's nothing but empty lighter fluid bottles, a few Salvation Army-grade pieces of mismatched dish sets, and a stack of yellowing newspapers and fliers for the bullshit Friends of Humanity meetings. Research. _Homework._

Pyro continues with the morning routine, the same one he's had for a few months now. He pours two-week expired Cheerios into a beat to shit Flintstones bowl. And with a sigh, he pulls out his second-hand barstool, sits, and rhythmically shovels cereal into his mouth like logs onto a furnace. Fuel, not food. He cracks his knuckles, rolls his shoulders, and the hand not gripping a spoon like a shank absently flips his lighter open and closed as he reads.

His eyes scan the headlines.

Click. Click.

Something about a new amendment on the Registration Act. **Click.**

Regressed Cure rate is now up to an estimated 77%. Up six percent from yesterday. Click.

Mutant terrorist outfit discovered at a boarding school in upstate New York. Cli…ck.

Pyro's chewing slows as he drops the spoon and his lighter, both hands gripping on to the newspaper and folding it over to reread the bottom half.

**MUTANT TERRORIST THREAT NARROWLY AVOIDED! CITY COUNCIL TO THANK TRASK INDUSTRIES**_A mutant military force was discovered underneath the foundation of a New York preparatory school last week, outfitted with several combat simulators as well as fighter aircraft-_

He swallows the remainder of the Cheerios, which suddenly taste less like cardboard and more like sawdust.

_-public may rest assured that the base was dismantled, with several terrorists taken in to custody-_

A hand drops to grip his lighter again. Clickclickclickclickclick.

_-although a high alert has been issued as many mutant fugitives believed to still be at large-_

He turns the page. The lighter in his hand gives off a spark, igniting into a flame that crawls up his arm. Pyro ignores it, eyes trained on the page intently.

_-While most members are not accounted for, the following are confirmed residents of the alleged Institute who have resisted arrest and are wanted immediately for questioning:_

_Ororo Munroe__  
__Robert "Bobby" Drake__  
__Katherine "Kitty" Pryde__  
__Piotr Rasputin_

_In addition, warrants for the arrest of the following mutants have been issued based on prior affiliation with the terrorist cell:__Allison Blaire__  
__Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock__  
__Lorna Dane__  
__Henry "Hank" McCoy__  
__Kurt Wagner__  
__Warren Worthington, III-_

The fire spreads further up his arm.

_All individuals are extremely dangerous, with alleged Brotherhood connections, and are_**_not_**_to be approached by civilian forces. Please contact your local-_

The newspaper bursts into flames.

Pyro watched with a sneer as the paper curled into itself, eyes staring intently as the edges went charcoal black and the fire flared. Before the paper was entirely incinerated, the stark words of the headline stood apart from the smoldering print around it- a black reminder before it, too, vanished in the small inferno.

**MUTANT TERRORIST**

Pyro watched as the fire spread to the counter, crawling out and searching for fuel, tendrils of flame wrapping around stacks of fliers, of newspapers, of magazine clippings, eating everything in its wake. He watched numbly, doing nothing to stop its progress—he had disconnected the smoke detectors months ago.

Serves them right.

They didn't join up with Magneto when they had a chance. They had protected the weak, and now it had bit them in the ass.

He hoped they had torched the place.

The flame from his lighter spreads to the plastic lighter fluid bottles. They reek as they're melted into the counter, small bursts of flaring up when the fire consumes the remnants of their contents.

That's what happens, when people tried to handle shit with kid gloves. They underestimate how desperate humans can get. They want to _talk_and talking got you nowhere but a cell or a cute memorial tree.

The fire roared as Pyro slams a fist on the counter, the flames parting for his hand.

Stupid assholes. They should have _acted._And now they were dead or on the run. Pyro didn't have any doubts about that. Those _things-_what was being called a _task force_\- they were going to kill any mutant they saw. Because that's what weaker things did- they huddle in the corner and lash out at the hunters. And the holier-than-thou _X-Men_found out the hard way that prey can bite the hand that feeds them. Good. _Good._

He flipped the top of his lighter. Flipped it closed again.

Pathetic. That's all they were. Pathetic boy scouts, and it was probably better that they were out of the picture. The humans did them a favor, getting rid of the passive mutants. Now the rest of them would see how _compassion_was rewarded. They wouldn't sit twiddling their thumbs while humans made Terminators to hunt them down.

He inhaled, and smoke stung the insides of his nostrils.

…There were _kids_ there. He remembers a few of them. Paige, Jono, Angelo. Little, obnoxious shits that he'd been stuck babysitting more times than he cared to. Because Marie and Bobby were the Upstanding students, and they were Setting Examples and he was always along for the ride-

The shrill of the building's fire alarm sounded off.

Pyro felt his fingers clench down into fists. His lighter snaps open and something- _click-_ clicks into place.

He knew Bobby was on the list of the ones that escaped. Bobby, Kitty, Piotr…was there a Marie? Fuck, why couldn't he remember? Why did he even care? If she had actually taken the Cure she wasn't one of them anymore. She'd turned her back on her own kind. Let them have her and play lab rat-

The sprinklers went off, but the fire was already roaring in protest, flames starting to lick at the ceiling.

It had gone Storm, Bobby, Kitty…Marie? Storm, Bobby, Kitty, Piotr…_Fuck._Why couldn't he remember the order?

In the distance, there was the muted sound of sirens. Like from an ambulance. Or a fire truck. Pyro flipped his lighter again.

This wasn't his problem. It wasn't his _job._

He sneers and stands up abruptly, the barstool toppling over and falling into the circle of flames surrounding him. Clickclickclick.

Whatever. Fuck it.

Pyro grabs his jacket, looking around and noticing that the fire from the newspaper has spread beyond the kitchen, torching his mattress and the spare room it was held in. Smoke rolls in waves by the door to the building's hallway, no doubt getting sucked out into other apartments, other hallways. He sends the efficiency apartment a dismissive, detached glare before turning towards the door. Let it burn. He was sick of this shit hole anyways.

He stalks out without turning back.

Being a telepath might have earned him a better place, but being what he was meant he could always run without leaving evidence.

The fire trucks sped passed him as Pyro walks along the city street, not sure where he's going. Not really caring.

It's a bad morning.

* * *

He smells like smoke and he imagines they're going to start looking for an arsonist eventually, so Pyro settles on sitting at a bar in a crowded casino. Blue curls of cigarette smoke drift past the god-awful overhead lights, showing how thick the shit is in the air. It's good enough for a few hours, and it's easy to pawn a few chips off unsuspecting old ladies and cash them in for lunch. The burger tastes just as bad as the Cheerios, but in a different way. Greasy. But he keeps a hood over his head and people leave him alone while he eats it and it's good enough.

They have the TV on. The volume's muted, but the subtitles roll in black text boxes towards the bottom of the screen. It's a talk show. Two idiots in ties, one red, one blue. Screaming at each other across a table.

Blue Tie: We have American citizens being detained without being read their Miranda Rights-

Red Tie: _Terrorists._We have _terrorists_in _prison,_where they belong.

Blue Tie: The American people have a constitutional right to a trial-

Red Tie: The American people have a right to be safe in their beds!

"Hey, the game's on channel three!" Barks a man down the bar line.

Pyro's fingers are running over the lighter in his pocket. It'd be so easy. So fucking _easy,_to burn this place down.

The television switches over to a football game.

Pyro eats his burger and leaves without paying.

* * *

He burns down three more buildings that week: an old library, a house with white picket fences in suburbia, and a warehouse.

The house belonged to a high-ranking member of the Friends of Humanity. The library was where they'd print their fliers. The warehouse he burned down because it was empty and he felt like it. Because he was drunk. Because he couldn't remember what names were on that fucking list. Because he really, really didn't give a shit if one in particular was missing from it.

* * *

The weeks go by, and things get worse.

Not that Pyro's anywhere near surprised about it. Things always get worse. They allow it to get worse. More and more mutants go off the grid- arrested, detained, or simply gone. The Cure inches closer and closer to that 100% rate of diminished returns.

He's been scanning the papers. They don't have Magneto. They don't have Mystique.

They _do_ have a full list of the escaped fugitives from Xavier's, however. It's common practice now, to have a Muties Most Wanted section in the classifieds of every major newspaper. He's even seen his own name come up a few times. But, no matter how many papers he buys, in how many cities, he's never seen _Marie d'Ancanto _in print.

Pyro always imagined grief to be a sharp, raging force. Pain was. Anger definitely was. He doesn't know why this is different, but admitting that Rogue's probably dead leaves a dull, uncomfortable throb—sometimes it's pushed back, sometimes it's forgotten, but it's never something that's _gone_.

* * *

He hates her. And Bobby. And the rest of them. They played by the rules and now they're dead for it.

* * *

The Cure's estimated failure rate is now at 92%.

The new President has signed a bill that classifies mutants as something called "secondary citizens". In addition to mandatory registration, work permits have to be approved, and the "incident of Xavier's" has them spooked enough to ban mutants from owning businesses, running schools, or operating in government positions. Not that it matters anyway, since the only openly mutant politician was Hank McCoy, and he disappeared from public eye four months ago.

* * *

Hank McCoy is not seen on television again until two months later, when someone hacks into a government network channel, and puts footage of his death into circulation on the emergency broadcast system. The film is grainy and probably from a surveillance camera, but it's clear enough. It shows McCoy, in a suit and holding a briefcase, being surrounded by Terminators—Sentinels-as he walks to his car.

The fucking moron had put his hands up in surrender, hadn't even put up a fight. It took about thirty seconds to fry him. And someone patched it through to national television.

The entire country gets to see Hank McCoy murdered in cold blood. On loop. For about twenty minutes, before it's pulled. It's genius. Pyro can practically see Mystique's fingerprints on it. The human news tried to cover their tracks, tried to rationalize the attack, but the damage is done.

All that rage, all that simmering hostility, bursts open like a blister and the mutants take to the streets. There's riots, there's retaliation. It's beautiful, uncontrolled violence and it gives Pyro a sick satisfaction to watch Boston get torn apart by mutants. By _betters._He joins in. He laughs and burns everything the fuck down until he hears Sentinels descending from the sky.

Then he runs, but not before incinerating three of them. The dull, uncomfortable throb recedes for a while as he watches them burn with a slightly manic gleam in his eyes.

Hank McCoy actually did something for mutants with his ability to roll over and die: he finally created an open war.

* * *

The Cure's rate of failure reaches 100%.

Pyro's tired of being patient.

He burns down four more buildings and kills eleven more Friends of Humanity before the human scum get close enough to do anything about it. Then he kills six police men, and explodes three cop cars.

They manage to catch him on camera this time. Somewhere outside of Chicago, a police video surfaces of him standing on top of a cop car, throwing pillars of flame at anyone who's close by. He grins as they scream. One cop, a young man, manages to get passed the wreckage in order to approach him. He can see the sweat beading on his forehead as he holds the gun at him, ready to shoot him. The fear in his eyes.

"Put your hands up."

Pyro extends a hand to one of the cop cars instead. It combusts, "You know, the last time I did this-" another car explodes, rocketing into the air in a shower of smoke and sparks, "-it was only a mutant who could stop me. "

"Put your hands up, _now_!"

Pyro turns to him and sneers, raising both of them up, high above his head. The cop's too scared to shoot him. He can see it. Rookie, probably. Probably never fired his weapon in the line of duty before. Idiot.

"So I guess it's too bad you're killing off the weak ones first, huh?"

Pyro winks.

And the cop has just enough time to scream as the smoldering flames that surround him swell to an inferno, growing and over lapping where he stands. Pyro rolls his shoulders and drops his arms.

It's the cop's fault.  
He should have just shot him.

As he walks away from the scene, he's reasonably sure this one will make the national news.

* * *

It does. Pyro's mugshot from his prison time after Alcatraz is plastered all over the television. They start interviewing people from his hometown. Old teachers, mostly. A neighbor or two. They even track down his piece of shit dad, who he hasn't spoken to in over fifteen years. He looks just as drunk and worthless now as he did then.

_"Johnny always had a problem with authority-"_

_"Didn't have a lot of friends-_"

_"Knew he was one of _them _the second he started attending our school, I think he was six or seven at the time-_"

_"Loner-"_

_"Deranged-"_

Somehow, exploding a few cop cars has made him a public face. They start connecting the incidents of arson against the Friends of Humanity. They start giving him credit for buildings he didn't even destroy.

For the humans, _Pyro _becomes synonymous with _fear._

He sits in a mutant-friendly bar in New York, watching with a smirk as his father slurs all over the two or three coherent memories he has of the son that torched the house down when he was seven.

* * *

He finally gets his contact. But not from the person he expects.

As he returns to that same bar in New York, a blonde in a tight, blue dress takes a seat next to him. She's older, maybe in her late thirties or early forties, but she's hot as hell and Pyro is already suspicious. People don't sit next to him in _this_ bar, least of all attractive women. People know he's never in the mood to chat.

"Buy me a drink?" She asks, with a coy tilt of her head. Her smile is all teeth. And Pyro feels something that could be relief for the first time in ages.

"What do you want?"

"Anything strong."

That's not what he's asking. So he orders her a water. She looks at him with disapproval in her eyes and he shrugs.

"Fighting against the man doesn't have a steady paycheck, you know."

She allows a small grin, but her face is already dropping the façade. Gone is the leggy blonde, out for a younger man and some dancing that evening. Instead there's a cold, remote snake wearing her skin, coiled and ready to strike out at any moment.

"For someone so popular, you've been difficult to find."

"Don't have an address or a-"

"Or a cell phone. Land line. Credit card. E-mail. I'm aware."

She sips her water.

"So he's back, then?" Because he's got to be back. It's the only reason she'd be here. Because she might've been pissed that they left her, and he doesn't really blame her or Magneto for that, but she ratted them out. The keel was even.

Her eyes narrow slightly, "Is that why you think I'm here?"

That throws him. Pyro leans back, looking at her in confusion, "Why else would you-?"

"Yes, Erik is back," her lips thin, and he sees her blue eyes flicker a golden hue, "With Charles."

His stomach feels like it's dropping. That dull throb makes itself known in his chest. "That asshole's dead."

She sends him a look so poisonous he feels his jaw go a little slack, "We've always made a habit of underestimating Charles," she turns back to her water, and if Pyro thought Mystique was anything but a ruthless killer he might be tempted to say she looked nostalgic, "Idealistic of us, maybe."

The surreal feeling is replaced almost immediately with anger, with fury, "So, what? You're trying to tell me _Magneto _of all people decided to throw down the dorky helmet and-"

"Yes."

Her tone is so cold, so removed, that Pyro knows she's telling the truth. That Magento's joined up with _him._With the boy scouts. With the people who let their school get torn up by Sentinels. Who sat by and did _nothing _but _babysit _the enemy as it found new ways to kill them.

"I don't believe you."

"Yes you do, Pyro."

Fuck. He _does._He does believe her. And he's never been so _pissed off _in his entire life. Because he _waited, _like a fucking latchkey kid, for Magneto to come back. To get his powers, and grind the humans into the dirt. Instead, he's buddying up with the same asshole they tried to kill a few years ago. The one that wanted them to sit on their fucking asses, twiddling their thumbs while the Sentinels ripped _kids _out of their school.

Pyro lets out a ragged breath and his hand reaches into his pocket-

"Before you burn the place down in a tantrum, I have a proposition."

-his fingers brush the metal case of his lighter, but he stills them. Mostly to prove that he's not going to throw a fucking _tantrum._"What."

She folds her hands on the counter. Her back is tense, rigid with anger. And the two names fall off her tongue like drops of acid, "Graydon Creed."

Graydon Creed. The leader of Friends of Humanity. The bastard who helped revive the Sentinel project. The asshole whose thugs regularly kill mutants in the street for doing nothing but what they were evolved to do.

She has his attention.

"What about him."

"I know where he is."

His heart starts to drum in his chest. His palms sweat, "Yeah?"

Mystique sends him a sidelong glance, "Are you satisfied with burning down clubhouses, Pyro?"

"No."

"Then let me suggest the beginning of a new Brotherhood."

The smirk spreads up his face like kindling curling in a fire.

"Yeah. Sure."

* * *

They're joined by two others. A fat, shifty son of a bitch named Dukes, and a solemn asshole named Petrakis. He doesn't bother getting friendly. They're cannon fodder, it's practically stamped on their faces.

Mystique has a stronghold, and it's nice. It's really fucking _nice,_a penthouse with multiple beds and cable and an entire room that's dedicated to the assassination of Graydon Creed.

It takes about two weeks to case. To figure out the security details, infiltration options, and where they're going to set up Mystique's sniper rifle during the rally. But it feels right. It feels like making a difference. He gets a new flamethrower.

Pyro stays up late the night before the assassination, staring at the black and grey surveillance photo of Creed tacked on to the bulletin board in Mystique's study. Looking at every inch of his smug face, so he knows who to burn first if Mystique misses.

He doesn't hear Mystique enter until she pointedly closes the door. And then she walks over to him, silently crossing her arms over her chest as she rests on the table he's leaning against. Her eyes follow his, stilling on the picture of Creed.

"I ran tracking systems on the Sentinels," she says after ten minutes of silence have passed by, "And downloaded their transport archives."

Pyro looks over at her, not sure where she's going with this, "So?"

"There was a Marie d'Ancanto on the transport list. For three days. Then the name was deleted."

He closes his eyes. His fingers curl against the table top. That's it, then. That's really fucking it, isn't it.

"She had potential," Mystique comments blithely, and he knows that's as close as she'll get to sympathy. But then her tone takes on a distant quality, like she's recalling a movie she's seen years ago, "Before Liberty Island, I ran a background check on her. For Erik," she slides forward, standing, "Her mother's maiden name was Adler. I knew her grandmother."

"…What the fuck are you talking about?"

Mystique looks up, and whatever weird spell she's under is over as she straightens. The mask settles easily over her face, and she starts to walk away, "It's too late for the fallen. But this war starts to end tomorrow. Go to sleep."

Pyro snorts.

The door closes behind her.

He's not sleeping tonight.

* * *

Mystique misses.

The bullet hits the body guard who jumps in front of Creed instead, sinking evenly into his chest. The same body guard that Petrakis was supposed to take out and replace. But that doesn't happen. Because someone blew the whistle before it could. And Pyro trips over Petrakis's corpse in a hallway as he tries to get past the crowd to the stage. It's face-down, but the back of the head leaves no room for imagination as to what killed him: a crushed skull.

Dukes. It was fucking Dukes. He was Petrakis' back-up, and now Petrakis is pummeled dead and Dukes is nowhere to be seen. Once Creed was out of the way, Pyro was going to find and kill him, roast him like a spit pig.

But Creed needs to die first.

It's pandemonium as security surrounds Creed, creating a human shield. But Pyro doesn't care. It doesn't matter. Let there be twenty guards. Forty. A hundred. He'd burn them all down. He hears bullets whizzing by as Mystique tries a few more sniper shots before she has to bolt from her spot in the balcony, and as the security detail return fire.

Pyro ignores the bullets. He walks towards the stage in a calm anger, fingers clicking on the igniters under his sleeves. This is it. He's done. _He's dead._He's going to kill Graydon Creed.

The fire explodes from his hands, shooting out towards the crowded circle of guards. He hears people screaming around him, terrified as they run out of the audience hall like rats on a sinking ship. He hears the guards cry as the fire consumes them, tongues of flame snaking around their bodies and tightening like boa constrictors.

Pyro leaps up onto one of the tables, jaw clenched in concentration as he pushes the fire forward. It doesn't matter if he gets caught this time. Creed is burning today. He can feel exhaustion taking over his body as more and more guards come, shoving Creed towards a back room and further away from the reach of his flamethrower. Pyro cuts a path with his fire, giving chase as quickly as he can, and he's doing it. For all their guns, and tasers, and whatever other pathetic weapons they have, the Friends of Humanity are no match for even one of their own.

He's probably managed to kill a dozen or so before the Sentinels land.

Two, then three, then four. They surround Pyro and he screams bloody murder as he hurls fire ball after fire ball at them. But they're not what he expects. They take the fire like it's _nothing, _absorbing the force and extinguishing it. One lets out a wail- a high-pitched siren that makes him feel suddenly, violently nauseous and he staggers.

It's enough for one of them to grab him in a thick, metal cable.

To hit him on the back of the head.

He goes down.

* * *

Pyro wakes up and he's tied to a metal chair. There's a desk in front of him, a shadowed figure sitting across it. A solitary bulb shines in the ceiling with no cover over it, the bright light giving him a pounding headache as he tries to reorient himself.

The shadowed figure speaks. It's a man.

"Who are you working for?"

Pyro groans, his head rolls back.

"Who ordered the hit on Graydon Creed?"

His eyes focus, slowly. The shadowed figure has the silhouette of a man in a suit.

"Allerdyce."

His hands have handcuffs on them. The igniters have been taken off his wrists. His neck stings like something bit him.

"Who. Ordered. The hit."

Pyro snorts, and manages to spit despite the dryness of his mouth, "Fuck off."

The shadowed figure shakes his head and closes something- a file? – "Useless. Bring in the next one."

He feels something hit him on the back of the head again.

* * *

When Pyro wakes up, his head is still pounding, his neck stings, and his left arm hurts so much he can barely twitch his fingers. He groans, cracking open his eyes. This time there's no solitary light bulb, no shadows at all. Everything is _white. _Stark white. Blinding white. And the way his head's feeling right now, it's like shining a flashlight into a mirror and being told to stare at the reflection. He closes his eyes, taking a long inhale through his nostrils. He wants to barf. The inside of his mouth tastes like disinfectant, and it doesn't take a genius to realize he's been drugged.

A few more deep breaths, and he tries to open his eyes again. This time he can keep them open for a few seconds longer. He repeats the process again and again, until he can finally look around and get his bearings. He feels sick as shit, and he knows whatever they injected him with is still floating around in his system. His vision has black spots creeping in. He probably won't be able to retain consciousness for long.

And he can't move. He's practically paralyzed, laying belly-up on a hard- _white, Jesus fucking Christ-_floor. It has some give underneath him, like lying on a trampoline or something. His eyes travel around, moving in quick flickers with his pupils overly dilated. Everything looks blurry.

He really, really wants to puke.

So he tilts his head to the side, and he does. It's a dry-retch that brings tears to his eyes. Once it's done, he moves his head back up to look at the ceiling, still unable to move. His watery eyes trail down to look at his arm. It's purple and red and fucked up looking. There's a large swell on his forearm- a small mound of his own flesh that looks agitated but not infected.

It looks like an implant.

Pyro's heart beat intensifies, and he turns over to retch again.

Tagged. He's fucking tagged like he's in a zoo. Like a deer in hunting season.

He needs to get the hell out of here. His eyes dart around, taking in the white ceiling, made of the same material as the floor. There's no furniture- no desks, no chairs, no bed. Even _Alcatraz_ had furniture in its cells.

The walls are see-through, and look like some kind of plexi-glass. And that's when he notices he's not alone. There's _rows_of these fucking things. And some of them are occupied.

He musters all the strength he can, and forces himself into a sitting position. The motion makes his vision flood with black, and he almost topples over again. Pyro swallows, and it tastes like the sugar-coating of pills and tacks. Fuck. _Fuck._

He looks into the cell to the left of him. A kid's sitting there. Scrawny. Mop of curly hair. He's familiar.

The kid turns, as if sensing his stare, and looks back at him. He doesn't say anything, and he doesn't smile as he slowly sticks out a green, forked tongue.

It clicks in his brain. Artie Mad…something. The brat who transferred to Xavier's a few months before he left.

Artie's wearing a white jumpsuit, and Pyro looks down to see he's wearing the same thing. He wants to be sick all over again, but he's sure if he attempts another retch he _will _pass out this time. And he can't pass out. Not until he figures out where the hell he is, and how to get out of there.

"Where am I?" He growls.

Artie only shakes his head. And Pyro is about ready to torch him until he remembers that the kid's a mute. Typical. He opens his mouth to ask again, like it'll make a difference, when he's cut off by a quiet, Southern drawl.

"Looks like you're finally awake."

Pyro inhales sharply. He knows that voice. He knows that voice anywhere. Artie points across from him, and Pyro's head slowly follows the gesture.

Rogue's sitting in the corner of her own cell, across the hall from his. She's hunched in on herself, with her knees pulled in to her chest and her eyes trained down on the hands folded on top of them. And the first word that pops into his head is _cowering. _She's cowering like a dog that's been kicked too many times, and now just wants to duck out and stay unnoticed. It pisses him off.

And his anger must have been somehow communicated in the space between them, because her shoulders bunch up more. Pyro doesn't know what to say, so he glares at her instead. The spots are starting to flood back into his vision, but he doesn't care.

"Did you come here to kill me?" she finally asks, tugging idly at the material of her gloves but not taking them off. And pointedly not looking at him. He wants her to look at him. He wants to be sure she's real and that he's not going crazy.

Pyro's eyebrows furrow down into a crease of confusion, "No," because what the fuck kind of question is that, "You're supposed to already be dead."

Her lips twitch, "Sorry to disappoint."

The words tumble out before he even thinks about why he's formed them, and they're raspy from whatever's been pumped into his system, "I like being disappointed."

Rogue tilts her head up then, and he meets her gaze. She looks like shit. Paler than normal, which is an accomplishment in and of itself, with purple bags under her eyes and overly chapped lips. There's a question in her eyes, and her lips are parting as if to voicelessly say _John-_

He won't give her the chance, and snarls, "You're still a traitor."

And then, like the stubborn ass that he is, his body chooses that moment to lose consciousness before she can get a word in reply. And it all goes dark as his head slumps over and hits the white floor of his cell once more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: **Apologies for how long it took to update &amp; thank you for reading!

**Warning: **Things are going to get darker in this chapter. Violence, death, and references to torture.

* * *

**An Ending: Rogue**

**Unknown Trask Facility  
Not so distant future  
**

It was hard to believe that he wasn't here to kill her. Before, the idea would have horrified her. Now, it was just something met with a numb sort of skepticism. Someone would be here to kill her eventually, and if it had to be anybody, it might as well be John. It was starting to get to the point where she wasn't sure if she minded.

Rogue's also not sure how long she's been here, but it's been long enough to figure a few things out about her current predicament. For one, she was their favorite. The best guinea pig to dissect and prod, and that they believed the blood that filled her poisonous skin was the missing link between what they had, and what they wanted. Everyone in uniform had gone through extra precautions in order to avoid touching her skin: they used tasers, batons, and neutralizers. They wore gloves. The doctors who ran the tests and operations wore full body suits. Her nightgown had long since been swapped out for a starchy uniform that covered her up to underneath her chin. It had tear-away sections at the crooks of her elbows and behind her knees-for the needles. They handled her body like a ticking time bomb, but her blood samples were carried like they were priceless crystal.

It didn't take a genius to figure it out.

The one advantage that Rogue figured they had against the Sentinels was their powers. No matter what the hunters could do, they couldn't prepare for every eventuality—every mutant had something unique, that couldn't be replicated.

Unless you had whatever was currently running through Rogue's veins and about a thousand blood samples in a lab somewhere. And if Rogue had hated her mutation before, nothing made it seem more like a curse than knowing they were trying to harvest her DNA to hurt others of her kind. Her friends. Her family. People she didn't even know. Little boys in supermarkets.

Her eyes drifted over to John, still lying unconscious in the cell across from her.

_You're still a traitor._

And that was typical, wasn't it. Just in case she wasn't feeling pathetic enough, there was the one person who could get a last punch thrown in without even thinking about it.

And he wasn't even here to kill her.

When Rogue had woken up from her last procedure, she wasn't sure what to feel when she saw the drugged up form of her old friend. It was mostly grief. Because no matter how far their paths had strayed from each other, Rogue didn't want this fate for him. She didn't want Genosha for anyone. Not even Magneto, though he sure as hell deserved it.

But after the grief there was a part of her that hoped he had been intentionally captured. That, somehow, the Brotherhood or Magneto or whoever it was John was loyal to these days, had figured out they were using her blood to enhance the things that were hunting them down. That they had sent him in to kill her before she could donate anymore genetic napalm into the hands of the monsters that dared to call themselves human beings.

But apparently she was already dead.

Which wasn't a lie. She just was kind of hoping that maybe she'd get the opportunity to die before they figured out what to do with her mutation against everyone else. Already one of the surgeons was talking about having her do live tests with other captives. The thought made her sick. Somehow, without even trying, they had unearthed the biggest fear Rogue ever held close to chest:

She never wanted to hurt anyone.

That was why she had taken the Cure. Why she'd always kept anyone but Logan at a distance, even Bobby. She was that powder keg again, and these people were going to use it to inflict as much friendly fire as possible.

She didn't like the idea.

Rogue sat, knees drawn up to her chest, and stared at the gloves that covered her hands. She sat that way for a few hours, attention alternating between pulling out a stray thread from the cloth that covered her thumb and the unconscious boy (he was always going to be a boy, too angry and impulsive for anything else) strewn on the floor next to his own vomit.

He wasn't even there to kill her.

* * *

John wakes up after a day or two.

And he's not quiet about it.

"Hey! Fuckers!" He screams, pounding his fist against the clear walls of his cell in a rapid staccato, "You're not keeping me here, you got that? You messed with the wrong fucking mutie! _I'll burn this shit to the ground_."

Rogue can't even watch him. But she doesn't have a choice about hearing him. John screams, and rages, and beats at his wall for hours. She doesn't bother telling him it won't make a difference. He would never listen to her anyways. And, eventually, he'll tire himself out. Or they'll come in and taser him.

A few more hours pass. John's voice gets hoarser, his hits against the wall go from angry pummels to dull thuds. His demands of Let me out Let me out circle around her head.

When he falls silent, Rogue finally looks up.

The clear wall of his door has red streaks smeared across it. They're shaped the same way that she imagines a bloody fist would leave a trail. There's some of it on the floor, too. That bright red is a small explosion of color in the sterile halls.

He's collapsed on the floor, head tilted back to lean against the wall. One leg is outstretched, the other folded to his chest, and she sees the sheen of sweat on his forehead and neck. His chest rises and falls, and he looks at her with pure hatred burning in his brown eyes.

"What the hell do you think you're looking at?"

Rogue can't even do what was normal for them. She can't scoff, she can't roll her eyes. She can't call him a dumbass while grinning.

She shakes her head.

"A tiger in a cage, I think."

John sneers. "How _poetic._"

Rogue closes her eyes, "They ain't going to let you out, John."

"Pyro," he spits. "Goddamn. It's _Pyro. _It's not _John. _It's not-" he tears at his jumpsuit angrily, staring at the stark, dark grey numbers on the lapel, "-Subject M7295. It's. _Pyro._"

Her eyes still shut, Rogue shakes her head and rests her forehead on her knees. "You're always gonna be John."

She hears a muted sound that she imagines is John's fist slamming into something again, "Keep your nostalgic bullshit to yourself, _Marie_."

Silence lives in between their cells. Probably more than they live inside of them. Rogue, for some reason she's not sure of, feels her eyelids rim with tears. But she doesn't open them. She keeps her forehead on her knees and just thinks, maybe, if she makes herself small enough she can disappear from this.

They sit like that for what could be minutes, or hours, and finally she thinks he's composed enough to hear what she has to say without flying into another tantrum.

"…I'm sorry you're in here, John."

The silence stretches again. Thick and woven like cloth. When John speaks again, his voice is thick.

"Don't be. I'm getting out."

* * *

A week passes. He still sucks at awkward silences.

"Where the hell is everyone?"

Rogue swallows, "What do you mean?"

He's standing today. And pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, and _Lord _he is always so exhausting. He runs a hand through his hair, the grease in it making it stand up on end. It's been a week, and they only get showers before they go in for testing.

Rogue's hair is usually pretty clean.

"I _mean,_" and he shoots her an acidic look before continuing to pace, "-there's no one. _Here._"

She presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth, frowning, "Artie's right next to you."

At the sound of his name, the mute boy looks up and gives a half-hearted wave before going back to counting the threads in the sleeve of his jumpsuit.

"There's no guards. Our food shows up when I'm asleep. What the _fuck, _Rogue?"

She fiddles with the end of her glove.

John stops, pivots, and rests both his closed fists against the wall that faces hers, "You know something," he accuses.

Rogue sighs. She knows a lot of things. "Just be glad you haven't seen anybody yet." Though she knows he will. Probably sooner rather than later. There's no use keeping them locked up like this, paying for them to live, unless they get a return. And John's not an exception.

"Why." Like he hasn't figured it out yet.

She doesn't know how to put it to words. She doesn't want him to spend another twelve hours screaming and kicking and punching when it won't do any good. Because once he _knows, _he will.

"…Tests."

His eyes widen, "What kind of tests?"

But suddenly Rogue feels exhausted. Too exhausted to listen to him, to his screams of indignation and his fool proclamations. She's tired of hearing him think he's going to get out of here, because he's _not. _None of them are getting out of here because they were all already dead on arrival. And she's really damned tired of him staring at her like she gave up.

Because she didn't give up, at first. At first she screamed and sobbed and beat at her own wall until there was streaks of red lining it. At first she tried to absorb the guards, and the one time she succeeded, the rest of them beat her until she couldn't breathe without a rattling noise for the next few months. And that guard was still in her brain—still thinking about how much joy he'd get from torturing the mutie scum, about how might do that torture in vivid detail, how disgusted he was at all of them, even Artie. About how much less than human they all were to him. Even now he was wanting to put a bullet in between John's eyes.

And after the guard, some of the other mutants had been dragged out those double doors at the end of the hall, and never came back from them. And after that, there'd been the surgeries. Bile rose in her throat as she saw, just for a second, that scalpel poised above her, silver shining from the overhead fluorescent lights. Felt the gas mask getting secured over her nose and mouth as she cried.

"What kind of tests do you _think, _John? Algebra?" She hears the hatred in her own voice then, dark and poisonous and hard and all the things she really never wanted to be or feel.

His eyes widen, just for a second, as that dense head of his finally makes some connections. That there's tests, and she's been here a long, long time. And of course he gets angry: his nostrils flare out a little, she sees the veins sticking out in his neck as his jaw grinds down. And that pisses her off. Because he doesn't _get _to be angry. Not over something that hasn't happened to him. Not something that's _hers. _And she's not going to be just another slight against all the many he perceives against him. And she's sure as hell not going to be a reason why he burns down another building with people inside, if by some miracle he actually gets out of here.

His voice is dangerous, "What the hell did they do to you-"

"Do me a favor, John?"

He's thrown off by the question. And so she continues her interruption before he can spill out his poison.

"Just shut up for a damn minute."

Then she rolls over, faces the wall away from him, and tries to sleep. And Rogue ignores him, as he pounds against the glass again and demands answers and explanations. She keeps ignoring him, until the day he sees the guards for the first time.

* * *

Though they didn't come for him.

* * *

The day Rogue becomes a killer, she thinks that John's finally given up on trying to demand things. Instead of screaming at her, calling her a coward or a traitor or whatever else he feels like spitting out to get a reaction, he sits on the far side of his own cell, glaring daggers at her as she pointedly ignores him.

Artie sits, his curly head of hair going back and forth as if waiting for another volley. He looks at Rogue and sticks out his tongue, which makes her give a small smile. Seems like she wasn't the only one getting sick of John's tirades.

John is still staring at her. She can't tell if he's quite gotten to hatred yet. Seems like it's only a matter of time, judging from the way his eyes are burning and his fingers are clenching tightly against his kneecaps.

She's in a better mood than she was a few days ago when he asked. And today, she almost feels like speaking to him. Nothing major. Maybe just a smart ass comment.

"You're quiet-" she starts, but is interrupted when she hears a sound that sends shivers down her spine.

A low, buzzer noise emits from the halls just as a red light flashes in the distance. Rogue hears the metallic swish of doors opening, the sound of booted feet against carpetless floor, and goes very, very still.

Maybe today they aren't here for her.

"What's going on?" John asks, staying seated but looking around at the flashing red lights, unimpressed.

Artie knocks on his cell wall, and John turns to face him. Artie makes a show of covering his ears, then gestures for John to do the same. His eyebrows furrow, but he does what Artie offers with a skeptical look-

-that awful siren, that white noise, doesn't get anymore pleasant.

"Fuck-!" John cries out in pain, and this time Rogue agrees with him.

Because as soon as Rogue sees the guards walking towards them, head to toe in black, the siren goes off again, louder this time. She's not sure how it works, only that it feels like a power drill through a temple, and even with her ears covered, she curls up a little bit from where she's sitting. She registers that everybody else around her is doing the same. She can also hear some of the other mutants protesting underneath that terrible, bleeding noise.

"Not me-!"

"I can't-"

"You want them, not-"

Rogue takes a deep breath. Counts to twenty. Counts to twenty again. Keeps repeating it, so she doesn't drive herself crazy wondering how close the guards are to her cell door.

She's on her third count of twenty when the contingent stops. When her cell opens with that clean, metallic swish.

She squeezes her eyes shut. Damn it.

The guards always have headgear on. They always have earplugs. Rogue's not so lucky, and when one of them grabs her under the arm, she's as pliable and complacent as an over-boiled noodle. She's brought to a stand, but her legs are awkward and boneless like a faun's, and she wants to scream when she sees who stands in the middle of the guards.

A middle-aged man, with ink-black hair in a widow's peak, differs from his entourage in that he is wearing a white lab coat and not Kevlar. In his hands is a clipboard, not a gun. He's still more sinister than anyone else in this facility.

She doesn't know his name. But he's her doctor.

Once there's a guard on either side of her, the doctor makes a waving motion with his free hand, and one of the soldiers pushes a button. The siren turns off, and Rogue is roiling with nausea.

"Marie," the doctor greets, far too _chipper, _"How are we feeling today? It's been some time since our last appointment."

She's still disorientated from the siren, so she only glares because her tongue feels too swollen to form words.

"Rogue-?" She hears John's muted groan across from them, obviously still dealing with the noise of the siren himself. God, she hopes they don't hear him. Idiot will get himself killed.

The doctor steps forward, his dark eyes clinical as he looks her over. After a moment, he smiles, and playfully taps the top of her head with the edge of his clipboard. Like this is a game. Like she's a misbehaving child.

"Quiet today," he says, "But then, you're always quite quiet, aren't you?"

She used to scream. She remembers when she used to scream like John.

"Rogue!" This time the groan isn't so muted. One of the guards turns his head to look at the cell across from them.

"We have quite a big day planned for you!" The doctor presses, making a motion for the guards not holding her to file out of the cell, "Live tests, with a most _fascinating _volunteer-!"

Rogue wants to die in that moment. _Live. Volunteer. _She knows she's paling, she can feel the blood rush out of her face. She tries to move her arms, sluggish though they are, but the guards' grips are firm and hard.

"No," she mutters, head pounding with pain.

"Shall we go? Lots to do!" The doctor continues.

_Live. Volunteer. Live._

"No!" Rogue says, this time with more force. When she begins to struggle, the guards grip her tightly.

The doctor's smile is still on his face, but his eyes are cold. Bottomless. "Bring her to Lab block twenty four," he says coldly, exiting her cell. "We don't need her conscious."

"Rogue!" She hears John yelling again, but it's background noise to the two words that keep circling in her head. _Live. Volunteer. _But he keeps going, "Hey! Get off her!"

"Don't do this!" Rogue screams at the retreating doctor, and it's shrill and automatically makes her voice hoarse. It's been so long since she's spoken any louder than a mumble. The doctor does not pause in his step.

The guards start to drag her out, but today she's not going to let them. She doesn't care if they kill her for it anymore. She's not leaving this cell. She's not going to Lab 24. She's _not. _

"Where're you taking her?!"

Rogue starts to cry as they keep pushing her forward, out into the hall. She harnesses any fight she has left in her as she starts to resist their hold. She kicks, she yells, and she even tries to bite their hands, anything to get away from them.

"That's _enough, _mutie!" one starts just as Rogue snaps her head back into his nose. Which must break, because his next response is to bring a riot baton down to the back of her knees.

John's beating on the cell wall again.

And Rogue gives out a short cry as the force of the baton makes her drop onto the floor, but she doesn't stop trying to get away from them. Her legs lash out in kicks that are weak from malnutrition and lack of exercise, and when she tries to open one of those tear-away patches by her elbow she feels a boot connect with her ribs.

"I'll kill every last one of you fucks! I'll torch this whole fucking place-"

The boot comes down again, harder, and Rogue cries out at this one. When her head snaps back from the pain, she sees that Artie's crying. One more kick to the same place, and Rogue's still enough for them to stick something in her neck. In a few seconds it's over, as the fight leaves her and her body sags. Sedated.

"Marie?"

Her head tilts back numbly as the guards grab her under her arms again. Her legs drag lifelessly behind her on the floor as they carry her down the hall. Her vision starts to go fuzzy at the corners. Her ears ring.

"Marie? _Marie_?!"

Her eyes roll back.

_Live volunteer._

It gets dark.

* * *

When Rogue regains consciousness, she's back in her cell. She has no idea how long she's been out, but there's the strong taste of antiseptic in her mouth, and her ribs are screaming in pain.

And she's not alone.

In her head, there is a little girl named Carol. And she's so _loud_. She's so loud she practically drowns Rogue out, and Carol wants to know where she is and why it's dark and when she can go home and her last memory is being strapped down to an examination table and getting a shot in the neck from a scary doctor and she wants her mom-

-Rogue rolls over and vomits.

And then she cries. She cries for a good, long while.

She doesn't notice John awake across from her, his head shaved, his eye black, and his body nearly vibrating with a silent and deadly rage.

* * *

Later, what she does notice is that Artie's cell is empty. John looks at her.

"You were gone two weeks."

His voice is hollow.

"They took him out those double doors five days ago. He hasn't been back."

* * *

She wishes he would've just been there to kill her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes: **So I realize this is hella late, and I apologize (schooooooooooool *shakes fist*) ! We're nearing the end of the Darkest Timeline, just this short section and the next (also short section) one and we'll be on to part two! Thanks for your patience &amp; sticking with me. I'm aiming for finishing the next chapter really soon so we can get to the good stuff!

**Warnings: **Major character deaths, violence, and references to torture the next two chapters

**An Ending: Pyro  
Trask Industries  
A not too distant future.**

He's pretty sure they made her kill someone.

She doesn't talk about it, but it's there. He sees it in the way her eyes glass over, how she cries out for her daddy (or maybe it's not her dad. Maybe it's _someone else's _dad) in her sleep. How sometimes he can say her name four or five times and she doesn't register that he's talking to _her._

He needs to talk to her. He needs to talk to someone. He still can't do awkward silences.

She tells him her name is Carol, once. And that fucking scares the shit out of him. Because even though he's not entirely convinced Marie is her birth name (runaways don't do the real names. They just don't) he _is _convinced that it's not Carol. Just like he's convinced that Rogue doesn't speak in a New Englander accent.

Pyro's eyes dart to the empty cell next to him. There's nothing left of the kid in there. Not even an indent in the floor where he slept. And he feels a sick sort of relief at the fact that at least Rogue's not saying her name is Artie.

It's been thirty-two days since he woke up here.

Rogue's asleep again, back facing him and the rest of her compacted as small as she can get in the corner of her cell. All she does is sleep or stare. All she does is try to stop taking up space.

He runs a hand over the prickly edges of his shaven scalp. Wonders what the hell he can do next.

…he's pretty sure she killed someone.

* * *

Thirty-five days.

They dope him up again. He doesn't have any proof, only that he wakes up and his neck has a round, red lovebite from a needle over an artery (was it carotid? Jugular? Fuck, he didn't think he'd ever have to care about this shit) and he can't stop puking for a few hours after that.

* * *

Forty-two days.

He's learned to sleep with his eyes open. Maybe sleep is too liberal of a term, but he knows how to check out in a way he never could before during lectures. He leaves, he feels his fingers and toes get heavy and then disassociated—things he doesn't need anymore. He can feel his heart rate slow down as he leans his head against the wall. He is beginning to figure out what he needs to do to shut that part of the brain down—the part that still wants to know what time of day it is and if he can remember what a sunburn felt like or how steak tasted.

* * *

Forty-three days, and Rogue wakes him up by saying his name for the first time since she killed someone.

"John," she croaks, and it takes him a minute to remember where he is. Takes him a minute to let his body and mind reconnect, to wiggle his fingers and toes and realize he's a person again.

"What," he says, voice raspy with sleep as he tries to focus on her. It never gets dark, here. They leave the lights on all the time, fucking _white_ bleeding into his vision.

She's sitting near the cell wall. It's a first.

He de-numbs himself, and gradually shifts until he's against his cell wall, too.

"I need you to talk to me," she begs, and he realizes that her hair is clumped from sweat. That it's beading on her forehead. That she looks like a junkie, purging something from her system.

One of those elbow patches is torn open. They doped her up again, too.

"About what."

"Anything. Just-" she swallows, "Just anything."

His upper lip curls up into a sneer, "Want me to tell you about my day."

"Don't-" her body shudders, and holy hell, she really is withdrawing from _something_, "-be an ass, John."

"Don't call me John."

"Pyro. Whatever."

The fact that she so easily concedes the point only makes him more irritated. It's not about placation. That's not what he wants from her. From anyone.

He's fucking tired. So he leans his head against the glass, "Too bad we don't have a campfire. Swap stories. Make s'mores. Kumbayah. That's more your scene, right?"

She groans, her drawl thicker than usual, "Sometimes I really hate you."

"Shocking."

Rogue inhales, and he notices that she's biting down hard enough on her lower lip to draw blood. Her hands come up to her temples, the heels of her palms pressing against the sides of her head as if she could squeeze whatever was in there out.

"Are you John, or Aaron?" She finally chokes out.

_Aaron_? "What?"

"Your name. I-" Rogue's eyes tighten close. Her drawl lightens, r's dropping instead of rolling, "My neighbor, Aaron. He built me a swing set once. It was…pink. No, yellow. I got it for my birthday last year-"

For fuck's sake. She doesn't get to have a total breakdown before he does.

"It's John, _Marie._"

She blinks. Her breathing deepens, "Marie." She repeats.

"Yeah. It's Marie."

Her whole body shudders again, "Then you're. John."

"So you keep telling me."

"…And we were friends, right? Before. Before wherever we are now?"

Pyro rolls his head to look at her. Her eyes are cloudy, hands still over her temples. It's the most pathetic thing he's seen in a long time. He clenches his jaw, brown eyes meeting brown as he tries to figure out the answer to that.

"You tried." He finally allows.

"I think so," she agrees, the Mississippi creeping back in.

"They really fucked you up, huh."

Her stare sharpens for a moment, a heavy hit of clarity that makes her dilated pupils shrink just a little. She swallows, but doesn't cry. Marie would've cried, he's pretty sure.

"Yeah," she manages to whisper, "They really fucked me up."

* * *

Fifty-three days.

Carol is going to be twelve. She likes building model airplanes in her free time. She misses living in Vermont, but Boston is nice, too. Because of the space museums. She wants to be a pilot like her daddy.

She doesn't know why she keeps waking up in here.

He can do a lot of things. But Pyro can't stomach any answers when the stranger in Rogue's head asks him when she gets to go home.

* * *

Sixty-seven days.

They run _tests. _They put electro-somethings on his chest and head. They take his blood. They ziptie his hands to the railings of a treadmill that they force him to jog on. They shoot shit into his neck (carotid. It's the carotid artery) until he can't see straight. They ask him questions. He tells them to go fuck themselves. And they write things down on clipboards with frowns on their faces.

* * *

Eighty-two days.

They dump a new mutant into Artie's old cell.

She knows him, he guesses.

"You look like _shit_, Pyro," she spits.

He has no idea who she is. There's tattoos over her face. A hole under her lower lip that speaks to an earlier piercing. He snorts, looking at the ceiling, "You will, too."

Rogue looks up (she's Rogue today) at the conversation, and frowns. Trying to place her. The new mutant sneers right back at her.

"What're you looking at?"

Rogue shakes her head, "I'm sorry." And then she goes back to staring at the ground. Pyro's teeth gnash together in irritation.

The new mutant turns her stare back to Pyro, "When we breaking out of here?"

He snorts, actually _snorts, _before he closes his eyes and tries to be somewhere else.

* * *

Eighty-nine days.

The new mutant disappears through the double doors. Sometime when Pyro's asleep.

Guess she wasn't interesting enough.

* * *

One hundred and fifteen days.

"What was it like," Rogue asks him.

He's in the middle of some push-ups. He's always _hated _push-ups, but he needs something to do or he'll implode. "What was what like."

"After the mansion. What was-" she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and gives a little self-deprecating smile as she fails to finish the sentence. Pyro pauses a little at the motion. It's. Such a _Marie _thing to do.

"It was worse," he mutters, exhaling sharply as he pushes himself back up off the ground.

* * *

One hundred and forty-seven days.

"Who. Fucking. _Cares._" Pyro growls, as Rogue tells him the ninth story about the mansion. He doesn't know how this happened. That morning, she just woke up and when she did she wouldn't shut up. She kept talking. Giving him fucking _anecdotes _about the mansion. About Logan. About Boyscout-Bobby. About a pie she tried and failed to make and if the damn surgeries and medications and _tests_ don't get to him first, Rogue's story about _pecans _might just be what breaks him.

She doesn't stop when he interrupts her, her hands nervously working at the fabric that bunches at the ends of her fingers, "So Kitty tried to fix a computer by phasing through it, and the microwave blew up. Not sure how that happened, exactly. Though it was almost worth it for Ororo's face-"

He bangs his head against the wall, hoping it will eventually be enough force to concuss.

* * *

One hundred and forty-nine days.

He realizes, then, that when Rogue was telling him her stupid stories, what she was really doing was giving him a memoir. That maybe she didn't trust herself to keep onto them anymore. That maybe she was worried all her stories were going to be gone, replaced by trips to the NASA museum and some guy named Aaron building swing sets she never owned.

The thought's fucking terrifying. And it's almost enough to make him feel like a jackass. Almost.

* * *

One hundred and sixty-eight days.

They take her out again.

He paces. He watches the cell that's empty of her. He waits. He tears at the hair that has since grown back in. He punches a wall.

She's pathetic and fucked up and she doesn't even know who she is half the time. But she's all he's got in here.

* * *

One hundred and eighty-four days.

They fucking killed her.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Remembers a different life. A girl who smiled over her shoulder at him. Who rolled her eyes when he juggled fire during class in a half-assed attempt to impress her.

He doesn't move for a while.

* * *

Two hundred and two days.

He wakes up, and she's laying there. Rogue doesn't move from her spot on the floor, her face gaunt and the clear seam of stitches across her hairline. Her lips are cracked when she parts them.

"Hey," she manages.

He stands up. Walks to the wall of his cell. Swallows.

"…Hey."

* * *

They both survive the first year. Somehow.

* * *

The year after that is the same shit. Tests. Experiments. Surgeries. Beat downs. Blood samples. Rogue double-checking her memories against his own. Him waiting for her to finally, judgmentally, ask him about Alcatraz. She never does. And while she's more Rogue than Carol, he doesn't think Carol's going away anytime soon.

They shoot him in the neck with something and ask him questions. He tells them to fuck off. They frown. And the tests come at less regular intervals. The frowns grow deeper. The checks on the clipboard more frequent.

He's not sure if any of that's a good thing. Not sure if good things matter anymore.

* * *

Turns out, it's not a good thing. His blood comes back with something they're no longer looking for. And that means he's going to last seven hundred and forty three days.

* * *

Seven hundred and thirty-seven days.

"You think you're going to roll over and die when I'm gone?" The question is caustic, but he doesn't really care. He's been here long enough to know what it means when they stop taking blood samples. They stopped taking his a little under two months ago.

"Don't be stupid, John."

"Pyro," he corrects—now it's an endless, fucking moronic game between them, "What's the matter? Afraid I'll figure it out?"

She's picking at a spot on the floor, and doesn't look away from it. "Figure what out."

"How much you need me."

Rogue outright _laughs _at that, a barking noise that sounds fucking terrible because it hasn't been made in so long, "They aren't going to kill you," she says, but they both hear the emptiness in the promise.

"They stopped taking my blood. Sure they are."

"They stop taking lots of people's blood_._"

"Lots of dead people's. You're not answering the question."

Her arm goes limp at her side in exasperation, and she sends him an irritated look, "I don't need you to live, John."

She's probably lying. And, like the absence of blood work, like the too many checks on his clipboard, he's not sure if that's a good thing or not.

He makes a nondescript noise, caught somewhere between a scoff and a growl, before he goes back to waiting.

* * *

Seven hundred and forty days.

"I had a thing for you, once," she volunteers, breaking a good four-hour silence.

He knows what she's doing. Hears the desperation, beaten down as it is. He can play along as they wait for the inevitable double-doors to open, "I know."

"Before I realized you were a jackass. That killed it pretty quick."

The grin that finds its way to his face is broken and twisted and soulless, but he forces it all the same, "So was that before or after you started doing the popsicle?"

Pain crosses her face for a second, but she swallows it down just like he's been swallowing his anxiety for the past sixty four days, "_That, _you don't get to know."

"Typical."

"I…" she frowns, looks away.

"Save it," he says, too tired for placation. Too tired for a lot of things.

She hesitates, but nods, "Doesn't matter much, in the long run."

Or the short one, in his case.

* * *

The morning of his seven hundredth and forty-third day, he's woken up with white noise in his ear and a desperate desire to heave. Double-doors open. Boots thud on the floor. Someone opens his cell. A riot baton smashes against the back of his head. And the end of his life is just that simple. Just that _easy. _

Pyro's shoulders sag, and he feels the tops of his feet sliding along the floor as mechanical hands lift him up from underneath each armpit. He can vaguely register the sound of Rogue screaming in the cell across from him, yelling something unintelligible and that was so like _her, _wasn't it? To act like there was still a way to change things, make things _good _when it was clear to both of them that it wasn't going to make a damned bit of difference. To finally get some damn energy when it looks like he was punching out.

He feels blood trickle down the back of his head from where they'd clubbed him. Bastards.

Pyro's ears are full of white noise- the ringing from the baton, the screaming from Rogue, the electrical hum of the machine's processors. It's all out of focus, a surreal moment in the life of someone else. It makes no fucking sense, but he thinks about that stupid literature class at the mansion—there was a passage on something about sound and fury and nothing being significant. Shakespeare, maybe. Pyro actually kind of liked Shakespeare, in a might-as-well-pass-_something_ kind of way. And short thoughts circle around his head. _This is it. _Followed shortly by, _it's over. _

"_JOHN!_"

He can feel the blood trickling down his ears now, that high-frequency siren matching the beats of his heart. He's fucking tired. He's so, so fucking tired. He's been tired for so long. He hears that name again- _John, John, Johnjohnjohn –_ and it's like a foggy reminder. The pounding in his head clears for just a small moment, to remind him that something's behind him. Something important.

The disorientation stops for one perfect moment of clarity.

Pyro cranes his neck over his shoulder.

Rogue's there, still in her cell. Her clothes still immaculately white, her fists beating staccato against the clear linings of the walls. She looks scared, and she's mouthing something as she pounds against the wall, like it can break. Like she could break it. Hell, maybe she can.

Pyro watches her lips move. Because Pyro's an instigator. And instigators always want to put their hands on the things that say Do Not Touch. But right now she's using those lips to scream and there's tears in her eyes and her immaculately white gloves have spots of red on them from beating against the wall and that's when Pyro slowly turns his head forward again and the reality that he is absolutely _fucked _actually dawns.

Less than a hundred feet down the cell-lined hall, there's a set of white double doors.

People who go through those doors don't come back. Like Artie- and Christ, he couldn't have been over fifteen when they took him. What makes Pyro think he's so special if the kid wasn't. He'd be able to figure it out, if not for the screeching in his head.

And he realizes that the reason why he can't think is because they've used a sonic emitter on him. That his head is pounding because they _neutralized _him like a goddamn rat.

He thinks about fire. He thinks about how it _eats_ things, until there's nothing left but ash. It's been so long since he's allowed himself to think about fire. His numb, nearly limp fingers manage to mimic the motion of a thumb clicking back a wheel.

Except now there's no wheel. No wheel, no butane, no _spark._

Pyro looks back over his shoulder again. Rogue's still screaming, still trying to break against the plastic- he notices that there are actual dents in the wall and he grins.

She's not dying. She's pissed.

And that idea is suddenly so intensely _funny. _That his last act on this fucked up planet is to piss off Marie d'Ancanto. That he expected his dying would get her. Instead it's finally getting her off her ass. So he laughs.

Pyro throws back his head and _laughs. _The barking quality of the sound echoes throughout the cell-lined halls, coming off as a mixture of maniacal and desperate and he doesn't give a fuck. He doesn't give a fuck because he's _Pyro_, and he, it turns out, might still be part of something that's not going to go down without a fight.

Some mutants can't be neutralized. Some mutants don't need lighters to ignite. And Rogue, deep down, has always been a powder keg just waiting to explode.

He cranes his neck over his shoulder one last time. He meets her eyes- are those actual _tears? _Holy shit. That might just be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Pyro smiles, and it's not a nice smile. His upper lip curls over his canines, his nose crinkles into a sneer.

"Give them hell, Rogue."

He watches her fist stop, and she stares at him incredulously. He looks at every line of her face, and thinks there's worst sights than this one to punch out on.

The white double doors swing open.

Pyro winks, and hollers out a final _fuck you _to whoever's listening, because someone's _always _listening. He thinks he hears her crying, maybe.

The doors swing closed.

John takes a deep breath, and thinks about trips to science museums and cafeterias, of jackass boy scout popsicles and bald know-it-alls, of cigar smoke and Southern drawls forming out of lips he should have kissed just the once for the hell of it, of his asshole dad drinking away their rent money and the burning, growing center of a flame- but then he feels the prick of a needle in his neck and he doesn't think about much anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes: **Really short and not-so-sweet wrap-up for part one! FINALLY getting to the good stuff next chapter, which I am writing as you read this :P thanks readers for being patient as I finish up school stuff

**An Ending**

_**Rogue**_**  
Trask Containment Facilities  
The not too distant future.**

They come for her six days after John's dead.

Six days. Less than a week. It's less than a _week _when _he _shows up, arm extended and a calm, indulgent little smirk on his lips when he rips down the door to her cell.

"You were remarkably difficult to find," he says, clicking the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth and Rogue just _stares._

When he inclines his head, like he's waiting for a _thank you, _she stops staring and instead snaps.

"You son of a bitch-!" she screams, trying to push herself up off the ground, but being unable to support her own weight. Her ribs are still bruised, still cracked from the kicks of steel toes. Her knee is still out from the club she got to the back of it when the guards came in to pacify her.

Magneto only arches a brow in disappointment as she attempts to shove herself off from the wall. He doesn't move to help her as she falls to a knee against the floor, breathing heavily.

Six. Days. Six days earlier and John would've-

Rogue grits her teeth. Pushes through the pain to stand again. She's going to kill him. She's going to slap her bare hand against that smug bastard's face for being six days too late (for being _years _too late) even if it's the last thing she does-

"Marie?"

It's a question. From a voice she knows all too well.

Her breathing falls in short pants. Her legs become numb under her once again. She braces herself against the wall, pressing her palm against the cool expanse of plastic. Rogue coughs, light pink staining the back of her glove as she wipes spittle away, and closes her eyes.

"_Marie," he said, lip curling up as if the syllables of her name were hooks sunken into him, "Is not your fucking name."_

"Marie-"

It's a whisper, this time. And she is dimly aware of someone wrapping an arm around her waist (below her ruined, ruined ribs), of hoisting her weight over their shoulder.

She can't sob anymore. She can't do anything. She lets herself be packed up like a doll.

"Marie, can you hear me?"

Rogue breathes slowly through her nose. And her question is measured out in tiny exhales, "…are you real?"

She opens her eyes. Looks into the face of a stranger she loves. Bobby. His name is Bobby.

Bobby's eyes are watering. Bobby's having a hard time swallowing down whatever it is he needs to say. Bobby takes a minute to answer her, "Yes. I'm real, Marie."

"_Marie!" He screamed, when she wasn't. When she was Carol instead. "It's fucking _Marie_-!" And she thought he sounded like someone grieving, even if he was angry about it._

She stares at his face. At eyes that are blue instead of brown. At light brown stubble over his cheeks and jaws.

"_Took you long enough, popsicle" he would say, if he was still around to say it._

The glove that is stained pink with her cough tightens in the leather of Bobby's jacket, over the light blue X.

"I'm losing my mind," she whispers to the raised leather emblem, her fingers dancing around its edges.

"As sentimental as this is-" Magneto (she wants to kill him. She wants to watch life fade from his eyes because of what he couldn't be bothered to prevent, for all the damage he's caused by _not caring_) "-alarms usually signify guards."

Rogue reluctantly tears her gaze away from the X, to meet the gaze of Erik Lensherr.

"I'll kill you," she promises.

Magento smiles, "That, my dear, may not be necessary."

* * *

She doesn't fight what happens next. Bobby takes her. They run. She knows she should be more afraid, but she isn't. Instead she lets them drag her through halls that all look the same. That have so many twists and turns she doesn't even attempt to keep track of them.

…the only time she staggers is when they walk through white double doors. When she sees a medical table with shackles and leather restraints in the middle of a vacated lab.

The sheets are white. The scalpels and saws on the tray are spotless, catching the gleam from the overhead lights.

_Give them hell, Rogue._

* * *

She must become Carol for a while, because when she opens her eyes, they're in-line with a far too familiar stare.

"Welcome back," Professor Xavier whispers.

Rogue tenses, looking around. There's restraints over her chest, and she startles on instinct, ready to tear free-

-until she realizes it's a safety belt. Until she realizes she's on a jet. Her surroundings slide over her like an oily film—there are no labs. No scalpels. No saws. There's the hum of an engine. The odd not-feeling of Professor Xavier's fingers hovering above her temples.

There's no doctors. There's no John.

Professor Xavier looks like he wants to cry. And it upsets her. He doesn't get to cry over her if she doesn't get to cry over John. Or Artie. Or everyone else.

"You were six days too late," she says quietly, feeling Bobby's stare trained on her from across the bay.

"We were years too late," he corrects, "But perhaps it doesn't have to stay that way."

She closes her eyes. Aaron is fixing the swingset behind them. Carol's legs kick up as she laughs, using the momentum to push herself up, higher higher higher-

"What do you need me for," Rogue croaks. Because everyone always _needs _her for something. Her blood. Her skin. Her memories.

The Professor's answer is the only one he needs to give:

"Logan."

* * *

"I'm sorry," Bobby whispers to her, as he helps her walk off the jet and into the temple (she thinks it's a temple. Or a last stand).

She loves him, or who she used to be loves him. It's the only thing that stops her from draining him dry of any other hollow words.

"John's dead," is all she says.

The grip he has on her waist tightens. Rogue keeps trying to match his steps even though her ribs are screaming in pain.

"Kitty's hurt," he offers in return, "She won't be able to maintain the contact. She's the only one who can."

So they brought her back to be a murderer again. Rogue's lips thin, "…I don't want to-" Rogue doesn't know how to finish the sentence. She clenches her jaw, "I don't want to be the one you need to finish things."

Bobby looks down, "I know," then to her, and his stare is so full of pain Rogue feels it in her bones, "But you're also the only one who can give us a chance to try again."

* * *

There's a crash. Things—and people—go quickly after that.

* * *

Logan looks dead.

He's not, she knows he's not, but seeing him lying helpless and catatonic makes her eyes fill with tears. Seeing Kitty struggling to breathe behind him isn't easy either. She's traded one nightmare for another.

"Rogue," Kitty says through strained gasps, her hands shaking as she tries to keep them stabilized around Logan's head, "Thank god."

"I'll pass," Rogue manages, gripping onto Bobby's shoulder as he brings her over to his dying girlfriend (she assumes Kitty's the girlfriend now).

Kitty manages a grim smile. Rogue manages a grim one in return. There's no room for anger, or regret, when she knows it's only a matter of moments before it's all over. _Give them hell, Rogue._

"Let's…get this…over with," Kitty says through another grimace, hunched over and Rogue can feel Bobby's heartbeat against her side. Girlfriend.

Rogue's eyes drift to Logan as she struggles to pull off the gloves of her prisoner's uniform, "How long's he been like that?"

Kitty grits her teeth, "Hours."

"That bad, huh?"

"Could be worse."

Rogue lifts her bare fingers to brush against Kitty's forehead. Bobby gives a nervous inhale that she tries not to hear, "I'm sorry for this."

Kitty's eyes flutter close, "Don't be."

Rogue doesn't hesitate as she presses her hand firmly against Kitty's skin.

* * *

Kitty's thoughts dance around her. They are all of resignation, and Rogue presses those out of her head. She has a final job to do. And she's ready for it to end.

"Figures it's you and me," Rogue whispers, as she shifts her body onto the stool that Bobby gently slides Kitty off of, "I'm glad you're not dead, Logan."

Logan says nothing. But she'd like to think his lips twitch a little. Her heart aches, as she switches Kitty's powers for her own, borrowed ones. As she keeps open a time stream between wherever Logan is now and whatever lies ahead.

A metallic screech, followed by an explosion, sounds ahead. It's getting closer, and she remembers the games they used to play in Mississippi, how they'd count the time in between the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder to see how close the storm was.

"Marie, you okay?" Bobby asks, once he's put Kitty down on a nearby slab of rock to rest.

None of them are okay. But Rogue manages a weak nod, "It's holding."

Another crash. Not long now.

…it's a little comforting, to know she's not dying in a lab. But it's far more comforting to know that she'll probably be dying for Logan.

Because she loves Logan. And so many other people who are dead.

The walls around them shake. The barricade in the distance rattles, like something on the other side's knocking. Rogue takes a breath.

"Y'all should run," Rogue whispers, her eyes trailing to where Bobby's hand is resting on Kitty's waist. The blood that is almost hidden by the black leather of his gloves, "I'll be the one to stay."

She can see Bobby's heart breaking on his face, and it's the first thing that makes her feel loved in a long time. But she also knows he loves the injured girl- woman, she supposes they're women now- in his arms. And Rogue's figured herself for dying for a long time now. At least now she can die to help something.

"Marie," Bobby says, but his hands tighten around Kitty, who is looking at her with a glassy, but determined stare.

Rogue musters up a smile, looking down at Logan's head between her hands. At the blue, ghostly light swirling around the both of them. She started this with Logan. Now they'd finish it as far as things would go.

"It's alright," she leans forward, and her hair brushes over Logan's face like a curtain. His eyebrows furrow, like he's having a bad dream and wants to wake up, "We'll be okay." Or they won't. But at least Logan gets the comfort of dying somewhere far from wherever this is. And he won't die alone. Neither will she. It won't be like John.

"No," the conviction in Kitty's voice shocks her, and Rogue turns to look at the woman who is struggling to stay conscious in Bobby's arms, "We're in this together. We're X-men," she smiles, and if it's not the saddest thing Rogue's ever seen she's a liar, "We're family."

The word sinks like a stone in her gut. Her eyes are burning with something. It takes Rogue a second to realize that she can still cry, because they can only be tears.

"She's right," Bobby agrees, and he moves to sit Kitty down in the chair next to Rogue. He leans over, and Rogue feels his lips press against the skin of her forehead for just a moment. Short enough to stop a full absorption. But long enough for her to see what he intends to do with his last few moments, "Until the end. Any end."

Rogue forces herself to keep focusing on Logan, heart twisting in ways it's forgotten how to twist. Her voice only shakes a little when she speaks again, "…Goodbye Bobby."

Her eyes shut. But she can see him smile at her behind her closed lids. That painful smile, the one that broke her heart all over again, "Goodbye Marie."

And though her eyes are closed, she can hear him whisper something to Kitty, who breathes in shakily and does not cry. And it makes Rogue feel privileged, that she's spending her last moments with people who matter. Her heart aches for John all over again. And Logan. And Artie. And everyone who was left alone as the walls came closing in.

She hears Kitty say I love you, and Bobby say it back. And then he's gone- he must be gone because suddenly Kitty's sagging against her side.

Rogue keeps her hands framing Logan's head. She keeps her attention only on the stream, on phasing him through time and keeping him alive. Kitty's chest rises and falls in small movements against Rogue's arm. Soon it doesn't move at all.

Another crash. Bobby cries out in anger. Then the cry dies. She feels something break.

_Give them hell, Rogue._

The ceiling starts to cave.

Rogue's breath comes in fast, her heart tries to escape her ruined ribs. She bites down on her lip, as the barricade fully collapses and Logan's eyes start to move quickly under their closed lids.

_Give them hell, Rogue._

She hears metal scrape against the floor. Closer and closer and closer-

_Give them hell, Rogue._

Rogue looks up. The red, hateful stare of the new Sentinel looks down on her.

Logan's pulse jumps.

Rogue swallows, not breaking the powers keeping her friend alive as the Sentinel raises its arm-

_Give them hell, Rogue._

"**Terminate.**"

_Give them hell, Rogue._

"See you soon, Logan," she quietly promises, bowing down to kiss him on the forehead.

He mutters something in his induced sleep.

_Give them hell, Rogue._

Rogue chokes back a sob as a flash of bright, hot light comes cascading towards her, as metal screams and rocks collapse and everything becomes undone-

* * *

-and then it's silent.

* * *

_"it was a lot like yesterday, a lot like never." - Tim O'Brien_

**End of Part One.**


	6. Part Two: A Past

**Note: **Hey y'all, just as a head's up this is where it starts to get AU! I'm messing with some of the events of X2 to keep it (hopefully) interesting :P

_**Part Two: A Past**_

**John  
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters  
Salem Center, New York  
The not so distant past…**

* * *

There's a crash against the door.

John opens his eyes.

* * *

Aaaand he immediately shuts them closed again. His head's killing him. Migraine or something.

More pounding on the door. Which, shockingly, is not helping said migraine situation.

"Screw off," he growls against his pillow, a hand reaching to the edge of his comforter and pulling it over his head.

"You're going to miss the bus," Bobby's voice is muffled and aggravated from the other side of John's dorm. Captain Mom, at it again.

Bus? What bus? John yawns, burrowing further into his blanket cocoon and generally not giving a rat's ass. It can wait. Or, better yet, it can be skipped and he sleeps in today.

"John-" there's a click. He registers the sound of a door opening. And hears the soft little _sigh _Bobby releases when he sees his blanket cocoon, "Seriously? Get up."

"'M sleeping popsicle," he slurs, "Tell Storm I'm sick."

"Like the last three field trips?" A new voice asks.

John's body stills at the sound of a Southern drawl. Damn it. He counts to ten before rolling onto his back, pushing himself up into a sitting a position. He blinks out sleep and glares at the two who are clearly against his happiness.

Bobby's arms are crossed over his chest, annoyed. But Marie sends him a small little smirk from her place behind her boyfriend, shoulder leaning casually against the frame of John's door.

"Eventually she's gonna quarantine you," she finishes while her fingers idly twist the fabric of her gloves.

John's head is still killing him, but he gives a brief snort before reaching out and grabbing his alarm. Red, angry digits flash back. All 8's. What a piece of shit. Not that electrical shortages in a building housing at least three human batteries was that much of a shock.

"What time is it?" He asks around a yawn.

"Nine. Bus leaves in fifteen," Bobby's face is stern, but John sees the grin trying to fight its way onto his friend's face, "…and danger session clean-up starts in twenty if you're not on it."

John flops back against his pillows, "This place is a prison."

"Better hurry up John," Marie says, pushing herself off of the frame. Their eyes meet for a moment, before she musters a smile, "I think one of the younger kids got sick in the training sim in the early morning session. Probably been sitting there for an hour already."

John grimaces at _that _lovely mental image. He throws back the covers and forces himself into a stand, "Fine, fine. I'm up." He looks at Marie and winks, "Save me a seat?"

"Sure," she says so easily he knows that she's messing with him somehow. Bobby only shakes his head before walking out into a hall, and his girlfriend follows him out. The door shuts quietly behind them both.

John yawns again, tasting the delightful taste of morning breath in his mouth. He shuffles barefoot over to his desk, eyes narrowed when he realizes that his monitor's on. Usually he turns it off—can't risk one of the nosy little shits like Angelo coming in and deleting something. Or worse. Reading anything.

John jiggles the mouse, and the screen flares to life. It's on a Word document, and he frowns as his eyes scan over the lines.

It's the novel he's working on. The third attempt at one, anyway. This time it's set during the Victorian era, and he's got a good feeling about it. But last night he remembers getting huge writer's block and stopping around page sixty.

This morning, it's at ninety-four pages.

John shakes his head, drawing a hand down his face. Finals week finally getting to him. That, or all the training scenarios one-eye's been making them run starting at five am every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. He sighs, hitting save before shutting down the computer. He'll freak out about the whole insanity writing later. Right now, he needs to go on Storm's geeky little field trip. No way in hell he's cleaning up the preteen barf that's no doubt on all the walls of the jet simulator.

* * *

He gets dressed.

When he pulls a shirt on over his head, his hand stops for just a second above where his neck meets his shoulder. His fingers trace the exposed skin over one of his veins (which one was it, again? Jugular? Carotid? He's going to fail the shit out of that anatomy exam on Friday) before the weird compulsion leaves him and he grabs his jacket and lighter before heading out the door.

* * *

With all the money Professor Baldie has, John figured he'd spend a little more on the travel fare. The bus they're all on is packed, and John is the last one on, his hand gripping the railing as Storm sends him a dry look over her clipboard.

"Glad you could join us, John," she says in a clipped tone, putting a little 'x' to his name on the attendance roster.

"And miss…wait, where is it that we're going again?"

"Bus, John."

"Planetarium?"

"_Bus._"

He snorts, shrugging his jacket higher on his shoulders as he climbs up. Looks down the aisle.

Bobby and Marie are seated next to each other, of course. The two of them figure out going steady and they're practically conjoined. Well, as conjoined as the permanent room-for-Jesus situation would allow. It always twists his stomach to see them together, but it's only a matter of time before they're both sick of each other.

_What then? _An annoying little voice asks, but John shrugs it off, opting instead to lean forward. He places his elbow on the seat rest besides Marie's head, and cranes his head down to hers.

"Thought you were saving me a seat?" He accuses, and he watches intently as Marie's eyebrows lift, just a little. God, she's so fucking easy with her tells. He makes a mental note to play high-stakes poker with her sometime.

"I did. It's back there."

Not moving from his position, John turns his face to the back. Sure enough, there's one seat. Surrounded by the elementary school kids. Who are currently launching kinetically-charged spitballs at each other.

"Thanks," he deadpans, "I owe you."

"Try waking up earlier. Better seats," Bobby says, flipping through something…god was that homework? Already? Had to be part of his mutation.

"Have fun," Maria teases. He makes a show of rolling his eyes, though he knows she catches his smirk as he walks down the aisle.

John starts the ride on the right tone but flicking his lighter and burning all the spitwads into charred crisps before sitting down. The only spot available is one next to this tiny, pale little kid—who, thankfully, is preoccupied staring out the window.

The kids are all looking up at him, moon-eyed, when he raises a finger.

"Any spitwads hit me, I'm torching your homework. Got it?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, sliding in next to the kid. When he does, the kid turns to face him, brown, unruly curls falling into his eyes.

"What?" John asks.

The kid just keeps staring.

"Great," he mutters through his teeth, "Just. Keep quiet. And knock it off with the staring, it's unsettling."

The kid's only response is to slowly stick out his tongue. It's green, and forked. John frowns-

_-he's huddled in the corner, his small hands dwarfed by the white sleeves of the jumpsuit and pressed tightly against his ears. The boy curls into himself, small small smaller even though he's already too small to begin with, and there's the sound of boots echoing in the hallway-_

-and winces. Another migraine. Just what he wants, a migraine and a bus full of pre-teens.

…He wonders if Marie feels his reproachful stare trained on the back of her head.

She must, because she looks back and grins before the bus starts moving.

* * *

Museums, John thinks, are fucking boring.

Sure there were some cool swords in the Medieval display, and a couple of interesting displays by the weather stuff, but after the fifth time circling around the cavemen so Storm could remind them all that they were normal, just oh-so _normal, _in the evolutionary process John's eyes were in danger of rolling out of their skull.

"You okay, Marie?" John hears to his left. He turns to face where the dynamic duo are, Bobby's arm slung around her shoulders.

She's rubbing the center of her forehead with the heel of her hand. For about the fifth time today. John's eyebrows furrow.

"'m fine, Bobby," her eyes are squeezed shut, "Just a headache."

_-it's like an angry, red headband across her forehead. Stitches, making neat little rows of X's-_

"Must be something in the water," John half-heartedly jokes, though his mouth feels a little dry for some reason and his stomach's knotted up, "I've been getting migraines all day, too. Or, you know. It could be because of the fifth Evolution Happens All the Time speech."

Marie gives a small grin, "…it is getting a little old."

Bobby looks up, over the crowd of their fellow students paying semi-rapt attention to Storm as she points out a stuffed lemur or something, "I don't think anyone would miss us. Let's find somewhere to sit."

* * *

Food courts don't exactly scream the most fantastic time ever, but at least it's not the guided tour anymore.

"Gonna puke?" John asks, hunched over the table and leaning on his elbows.

He can almost feel the scowl on Marie's face, even though it's resting against her folded arms, "No, I'm not gonna puke."

"You sure? You look like you're gonna puke."

"Why am I friends with you again?"

"You're into the hot and bothered thing. Admit it."

She groans, shaking her head. After a moment he sees her back lift with a deep breath and she sits up. And Marie looks like shit. Her face is paler than normal. Shit, maybe she is actually going to puke.

"Do I need to get a bucket?"

Marie rolls her eyes, "No. You see Bobby?"

"Yeah. Still waiting in the five hour line to get you aspirin," John jerks his thumb over his shoulder to the museum's gift shop where, sure enough, Bobby stands patiently, "_Such_ a great boyfriend," he finishes, not even trying to hide the snideness in his tone.

Marie sends him a dark look, clearly conveying just how unimpressed with him she always is. He sneers back. There's a moment of heavy silence, before John slips his hand into his pocket. It's always more out of reflex than anything when he goes for his-

_-he flicks his wrist, and a stream of fire expands from his fingertips. Torching cop car after cop car-_

-Zippo. He feels the familiar, cool weight of its metal casing. He withdraws it from his coat. Flips the lid open, closed.

"You're gonna…" Marie's admonishment trails off, as she catches something over his shoulder.

John raises his brows, following her line of sight. She's looking at the NASA display across the court. He frowns, turning back to face her-

-_"Ever been to the Museum of Science?" she asks, arms hooked around her leg, fingers interlaced over her knee. Like they're in a cabin swapping secrets at summer camp._

"_Yeah. We got kicked out, remember?" he growls back._

_She looks confused, and for a moment her gaze goes vacant. But then she smiles, toothy and big and he has _never _seen her smile like that before, "Dad used to take me every year on my birthday. They have NASA displays there—you can even sit in part of a shuttle they used. He's a pilot, but I think I'm going to be an astronaut instead-"_

-and Marie really looks like she's going to be sick.

He swallows, and his palms are sweating but he's not sure why. John shakes his head, flipping his lighter open and closed right by his ear instead. Click. Click. After the third swing of the lid, he's feeling a little more grounded, "Thinking about being an astronaut, now?"

She bites down on her lower lip, and her voice is weird and quiet, "…No. Never cared for astronomy much."

He snorts. The metallic swing of his lighter gives its little song, "Then what's the plan?"

Marie blinks, knocking herself out of whatever distance she was in, "What?"

"If you're not going to be an astronaut. What's the plan."

"What makes you think I have a plan."

"Sun rose in the east this morning."

She shakes her head, "I. Guess I'm working on it. You?"

"What kind of stupid question is that?"

"Thought you were a fan of those."

He smirks. The lighter lid swings close. "I dunno. Prom?"

"Prom," she deadpans.

"Yeah," he leans forward, "Want to go? We can slowdance, under the sea and government surveillance might be a good theme-"

Her face screws up into an expression of distaste, "You're such an ass, John."

"Usually," he agrees, and for a second they stare at each other. She opens her mouth to speak, but he cuts her off as his eyes drift behind her, "Lurches, six o'clock."

"Lurches-?"

"Hey, can I bum a light?" A deep voice interrupts. Both John and Marie turn their gaze up to the two newcomers. Both have shaggy brown hair and jean jackets. Losers.

Lurch #1 looks right at him, waiting for an answer. John smirks. Maybe they'll play the quiet game. Marie says nothing, but he notices a small smile on her face. It's all the encouragement he needs.

He flicks the lighter.

"John," Marie mumbles, but it's more in exasperation than anything else at this point.

"Hey, my brother asked you a simple question," Lurch #2 says after the third flick, "Why are you being such a dick?"

"Yeah," Lurch #1 agrees, "Why're you being such a dick?"

He shrugs, "Because I can?"

Marie smiles, though he notices that her gaze drifts over to Bobby, still waiting in line.

"Can. I have. A light." Lurch #1 asks again, Cro-Magnon (hey, he learned something from Stormy's lecture) brows furrowing into a V.

John flips open the lighter again, hits the wheel. A flame ignites instantly, and he watches its curve, makes it wave just a little with his mind. Gee, sucks to be a human, doesn't it. Sucks to not have your own spark-

_-the warehouse caves in, one wall at a time. He pops open the tab of his beer as he watches the flames eat it, crawling up and over the dry boards of wood. He's drunk, he knows he's drunk. But something about this feels cathartic. _Marie D'ancanto _isn't on any of the lists, and that means _Marie D'ancanto's _gone-_

John's head starts to pound. He squeezes his eyes shut for a minute, before flipping the lid. The flame's extinguished in a quick movement, "Sorry, buddy. Can't help you out."

"John?" Marie's head tilts, looking at him with something that's close to concern, "…maybe you should knock it off."

It feels like a knife's lodged in his brain. He taps his fingers on the table. Takes a breath. It's nothing, it's fine. He's fine. Just needs a coffee after this, maybe.

"Can't help it if you're getting excited-" John's gaze shifts from Lurch #1 to Lurch #2, who's trying to take a peek at Marie's tits or something as her lip curls up into a disgusted sneer-

_-a riot baton hits the back of her knees. And they're on her, they're on her like fucking vultures and he watches as they kick her again and again. They keep kicking her even though she's already down and he _can't do anything _when she cries out in pain or when they reach down to stick a needle in her neck-_

-John's attention snaps to Marie. His breathing is quick in his chest as he looks her over. No stitches. Nothing on her face. What the fuck-

-and Lurch #1 snags his lighter.

"Hey!" He barks, standing up and feeling more rattled than he'd like to admit. Lurch #2 blocks him, as he hears _his _fucking lighter in _Lurch's _disgusting hands swing open.

_-they're holding him down as they shave his head-_

"That's real cute, man," he manages, fingers twitching at his sides.

"What're you going to do about it?" Lurch #1 asks, as he brings the flame up to the end of his cigarette-

\- _the cop has just enough time to scream as the smoldering flames that surround him swell into an inferno-_

"Suddenly you're not so tough," Lurch #1 blows out a stream of smoke. John jaw clenches.

_-he hears people screaming around him, running out of the audience hall like rats on a sinking ship as he makes the flames crawl higher and higher-_

The dick brings the cigarette to his lips again. Takes his time inhaling. John's head is pounding. But he bites it down. He's not sure what the fuck it is that's happening, but he knows fire. He always knows fire. He watches the cherry, as it goes from grey to a deep red, an ember festering under the ash. He hears its familiar hiss, the need to eat.

He lets out a dry scoff.

And winks.

The fire expands, goes super nova, as John lets it stop being hungry for a second. The cherry ignites, crawling up Lurch #1's arm. John's eyes stare at it, and a part of him wants to snicker, to laugh at this dumbfuck who's just fallen onto his ass in shock, but another part of him remembers fire differently. And that part of him just gives a smile that's a little bit twisted.

He vaguely registers a cry of panic from a lady nearby. It doesn't phase him.

"What the hell did you do-!" Lurch #2 cries, going over towards him.

John just watches, as Lurch #1 crawls on the ground, his hand desperately slapping away at his now enflamed arm-

"Help it's-!" He tries to stop, drop, and roll. Fails.

John hears more people around them starting to panic. Hears chairs being scrapped back and people crying out the "M" word. Whatever, he doesn't care and it doesn't matter and he just watches as the fire burns through the fabric of the guy's douchey jacket to his skin-

"John, you moron," Marie hisses near his ear, and he vaguely thinks she's closer to him than usual before he feels her fingers, warm from the gloves she's always wearing, grab onto his own.

The jolt of her skin against his makes him stagger. It feels like a shock, a leech clamping down on him. His exhale catches as a sudden wave of disorientation his him—like sunstroke. He wavers a little on his leg, and watches as she extends her arm and makes the fire recede from Lurch #1's skin.

"Cute, we're-" he rasps, as Marie retracts all his hard work, "-holding hands."

"Shut up," she mutters, waiting until the flames are fully extinguished to rip her touch away.

The second her skin leaves his, he takes in a huge gulp of air and for a moment it feels like time's stopped-

-…and that's because time's stopped. John blinks. Looks around. Grabs the table for support as he tries to get his shakey legs righted underneath him.

Lurch #1 is still on the ground, face contorted in pain. John turns, sees Bobby running up towards them from the gift shop line.

"Bobby what did you do?" Marie whispers, but John notices that her gaze is trained on _him, _and not the people frozen around them.

"What?" John growls.

She stares, and the only response she gives is a slow look of concern.

It occurs to him that Marie takes memories too. He scowls.

Bobby shakes his head, taking a tentative step over an upturned chair to join them, "I didn't do this."

"No," comes a voice John knows all too well. And he whispers a quiet "fuck" as Professor Xavier rolls into the food court, "I did."

John's fingers curl into fists, as he jams his hands into the pockets of his coat. Marie' still standing right next to him, hastily trying to put her glove back on.

Xavier looks right at him, "And the next time you feel like showing off? Don't."

John's teeth clench. Like he's got a right to judge him. Like he has a right to tell him what he can or can't do.

Dr. Grey's next, and John barely registers as she kneels down by Lurch #1's side. She runs her manicured fingers above the charred area. Frowns. "Second degree burns," her eyes drift up to Marie and she nods in approval and _of course _Marie's back to being a perfect little girl scout, "Could've been worse."

Xavier's disapproval emanates from his bald little head in waves, "You three, back on the jet immediately. Scott, go with them," he turns to Dr. Grey, "We'll have to do some damage control. See that the young man's arm is taken care of."

"Of course, professor."

Cyclops is the usual ray of sunshine as he walks over to them, "You heard him, let's go."

And John simmers. Anger boils under his skin as everyone acts like _he's _the problem here. His fingers tighten even more, "C'mon. The guy was a total dick."

"And you burned his arm and almost endangered everyone here," Cyclops juts his chin towards the exit, "So let's go."

Bobby goes without any complaint, and John goes to follow him, hands still thoroughly in his pockets, "Could've told us there was a jet, instead of making us sit on the bus like we're in preschool."

Bobby sends him a sidelong look as they walk towards the exit doors, "What were you thinking?"

John snorts, "I was thinking the prick took my light."

As they leave, no one hears the news story on the television, muted and grainy.

* * *

Marie sits next to him on the ride back, right in between him and Bobby. And the whole time she doesn't say anything, leaving it up to John to fill the awkward silences as he makes half-attempts of conversation with Bobby.

It's not until they land back at the mansion that he feels her gloved hand slide through his fingers. Something heavy rests in his palm.

"You dropped this," Marie whispers, but it sounds like she's a million miles away.

John sends her a bemused look, before she retracts her hand from his and leaves a silver Zippo in its place. The red paint of the shark's mouth looks back at him, and he gives a little smirk.

"Thanks-"

But Marie's already gone, the sound of her boots echoing on the landing ramp.


End file.
